Sour Note: Tough Night for SU Volleyball on Senior Night

The Southern Jaguars volleyball team took on Prairie View Panthers in Clifford T. Seymour Hall. This game was an exhilarating and high-energy match for the Lady Jags because it happened to be senior night for two important players on the team Alissa Santoyo, a senior defensive specialist and libero transfer from Fresno, California, majoring in Child Development, and Raeven Pugh, a senior middle blocker and outside hitter from Fontana, California majoring in interdisciplinary studies. One would say that these Cali girls had something to prove on their night.
With a slow start to the game, the lady jags made many impressive plays during the set. But it almost seems like a lot of pressure was on this game, which may have caused some unfocused play, which led to many mistakes, from missed hits that could have been recovered to using too much power when the ball landed out of bounds. The lady jags seemed to have not shown up in the first set, which the ladies came up short with the score being 15-25, giving the Panthers the first set.
In the second set, the Jaguars still weren’t showing up on the court with the same repeated mistakes from the first set or hitting the ball out of bounds and open spaces with no coverage. Still giving credit to the Lady Jags, they were trying to show up, but in honesty, some points that the Lady Jags gained came from mistakes made by Prairie View’s Lady Panthers. The team still came up short again in the second set as the score was 18-25.
In the third set, the Lady Jags seemed to have gotten their groove back in the game by breaking ties and taking the lead in points, or so the fans in Seymore gym thought, and the third set looked very promising, but simple mistakes cost the ladies the game. Once the game was over, The Southern Digest reporter got a chance to speak with head coach Venessa Jacobs, and when asked about the difference between this game compared to the comeback against Texas Southern, she said, “I think it was a lack of focus the emotions are running high because it’s senior night and you have teammates who are playing their last game in our gymnasium, you have parents who are here and so there are high emotions and you see we try to settle them down to play their game and it didn’t get rolling till the end of the game.” For the ladies to get a better seat ranking in the tournament, the lady jags must beat Grambling and Arkansas Pine-Bluff.
The next member of the lady Jaguar’s volleyball team that Digest got to speak with was Jordan Felix, a sophomore setter from New Orleans, LA, majoring in business, provided her thoughts on the game, “obviously we didn’t come out with the outcome that we wanted, but I think that this will give us the motivation in practice to work harder, and hopefully get two extra wins in the regular season so we can place higher in the SWAC.” Felix shared a special message to the seniors, “Thank you for all that you do y’all are like mothers to the team, and this season is for you because we try to work hard since it’s their last season.” Alissa Santoyo shared a message to her teammates, “Thank y’all for being so welcoming to me coming here since I was a transfer from my last season, and to keep believing in y’all selves and to stay confident and be great next year.
As it was the last home game for the seniors you can tell that the volleyball team is one big family that has each other’s backs. The Southern University Digest wishes a successful season for the lady Jaguars and many opportunities for the seniors.
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