Texas Volleyball Breezes Past Mississippi State Without Key Player

Anderson recorded 12 kills and two errors Friday night, only trailing senior outside hitter Torrey Stafford's 20 kills. Anderson wasn't always a given in the starting rotation, but after sophomore outside hitter Abbey Vander Wal was ruled out for the season with an ACL tear, Anderson has stepped up to fill the open slot.

"I was really proud of her for taking that hit because she's gotten hit in the face a lot in practice... and today she took it like a champ," Stafford said. "But Henley (Anderson) continues to work really hard and get better for us."

It took time for Anderson to adjust to collegiate play. In her first match against Arizona State, she registered eight errors, including three service errors. Against Mississippi State, errors looked like a thing of the past for her.

Serving hasn't been this Texas team's strong suit. A frequent critique of the Longhorns was the sheer number of points they gave up at the service line for even putting the ball in play. That wasn't completely cleaned up today. Sophomore outside hitter Cari Spears is still having major blunders with the ball in her hands, clocking five service errors over the entire match. The Longhorns totaled 12 service errors over the three-set match.

Against Kentucky last Sunday, Texas never managed to hit over .250 in all three set losses. Against Mississippi State was a different story. The Longhorns registered a low of .357 and a high of .531. Its match kill rate also reached a maximum of .594 in the strong third set.

The Bulldogs were cashing in all their chips against Texas in the third set in an effort to extend the match. The score remained tied from the first serve all the way to 14-14 before the Longhorns finally started to pull ahead. Once Texas put itself up two points, making it 16-14, the writing was on the wall, and it never conceded the lead again.

One thing that had fans scratching their heads was no senior middle blocker Nya Bunton.

Just two weeks ago, head coach Jerritt Elliott and other players were singing Bunton's praises. Now she was nowhere to be seen. Stafford tried to ease everyone's anxiety about what this means for the team.

"Obviously Nya (Bunton) is going to come back, but our middles, even our freshman Camille (Presley), has been doing a great job," Stafford said. "Nya is a big presence, but I think in practice, our middles are working really hard, so it wasn't really that big of a shift."

Instead of Bunton, sophomore Mackenzie Collins stepped up to be the starting middle in the rotation, and Elliott seemed pleased with her performance.

"It's fun seeing her (play), first time playing at Texas," Elliott said. "It was pretty cool to see the first point of the game, and (she) came in and got a kill."

The Longhorns won't get much of a break. Texas takes on Alabama Sunday, October 4, at 12 p.m. CT.