Volleyball Opens SEC Play At Home Against Texas A&M

RALLY POINTS

• Ole Miss volleyball opens up SEC play at home on Wednesday, hosting Texas A&M at 6:30 p.m. CT.
• Wednesday marks the third time both teams have opened SEC play together. The Aggies won the two meetings in 2012 and 2020.
• The Rebels are 2-3 in SEC openers in the last five years and 1-1 under head coach Kayla Banwarth.
• Banwarth’s first match at Ole Miss and as a head coach was against the Aggies two seasons ago.
• Senior Anna Bair currently ranks second in the SEC and 23rd nationally with 4.24 kills per set.
• The Rebels closed out a tough non-conference slate that featured five matches against 2021 NCAA Tournament Teams.
• Ole Miss’ offense stacks up as one of the nation’s best, ranking seventh in assists per set, 13th in kills per set and 49th in hitting percentage.
• Middle blocker Sasha Ratliff was one of 15 student-athletes named to the Preseason All-SEC Team. She earned all-conference honors last year after a breakout sophomore campaign.
• The 2022 roster features 12 members from last season’s NCAA Tournament team, six freshmen and a pair of transfers.

SCOUTING THE AGGIES

Texas A&M rides into Oxford with an 8-3 record on the season. Head coach Laura “Bird” Kuhn and the Aggies have had a strong start to their 2022 campaign, with wins over Hawai’i and #21 Western Kentucky. Two of their losses have come at the hands of top-25 opponents in #6 Pittsburgh and #25 San Diego. Offensively, the Aggies are led by the attacking duo of Carolina Meuth and Logan Lednicky. Meuth leads the team with 3.89 kills per set and is hitting at a .279 clip. Lednicky has shined for the Aggies, claiming two SEC Freshman of the Week honors this season. Setter Elena Karakasi averages 9.47 assists per set and has the team hitting at a .256 attacking percentage. On the defensive side, libero Lauren Hogan leads the team in digs with 133, while the Aggies are registering 2.47 blocks per set as a team.

SERIES HISTORY

Texas A&M leads the series 18-3, however, it’s been much closer between the two programs in recent years. Ole Miss earned its first two wins over the Aggies in 2017, and just last year, came out on top in a five set thriller to snap A&M’s five match winning streak in the series.

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BRYAN-COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The Rebels and the Aggies went down to the wire, but Ole Miss was…