Ole Miss Volleyball Takes On Texas A&M

By Cole Guenther
HottyToddy intern
hottytoddynews@gmail.com

The Women’s volleyball team is preparing for Texas A&M this Thursday. Head Coach Kayla Banworth opened up on the challenges for the upcoming season.

“We’ve been practicing for what feels like ten years now, just waiting for our first competition to come up,” Banworth said.

The Rebels finished last season 14-15 overall, and 6-12 in conference play. After starting 0-3 last year the Rebels won an astonishing 14 games in a row. Unfortunately, they seemed to run out of gas in the latter part of the season. They hope to build a similar momentum this year to last season’s early winning streak.

“We have a really tough SEC schedule this fall. We draw the third, fourth and fifth-ranked teams in the conference… We have quite a challenge ahead of us, and they are looking like they are ready to compete.”

Some people have compared Banworth’s first year as a head coach to similar first-year woes felt by Lane Kiffin. Both have had to put together new staff and recruit in an unstable environment due to COVID-19. 

“It’s definitely been challenging. It felt a little bit like a rollercoaster in terms of our training period,” Banworth said. “My staff and the girls have had to learn to be very adaptable and figure out, ‘how do we get better in a really weird situation?’”