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Salukis soul searching after winless weekend

The SIU volleyball team hit the road last weekend with hopes of making a dent in the Missouri Valley Conference standings, but after losing to both Drake and Creighton, the Salukis are in search for answers - and themselves.

SIU (4-11, 2-4) overcame a 2-0 deficit against Drake and was up 14-13 in game five. But the Salukis never scored again, committing three errors and handing Drake (3-10, 1-4) its first conference win of the season. With the win, Drake ended its six-match losing streak.

"We had the momentum and just the few mental errors we made in game five cost us the match," said sophomore Jené Pulliam. "That was pretty hard for us to swallow."

Drake had 20 more digs than the Salukis, who had recorded more digs than their opponents in all but two matches this season. The Bulldogs, who came into the match with 95 total blocks in 12 matches, also stuffed the Salukis at the net on 26 occasions.

"It seemed like every time I went up there were these four big hands surrounding the ball," Pulliam. "I think that we just didn't do a good enough job of taking control of our hits and going around the block."

The ill effects of Friday night's loss lingered into Omaha, Neb., as Creighton swept the Salukis, handing them their fifth-consecutive loss.

Creighton (11-4, 3-3) severely outplayed SIU offensively, hitting .296 to the Salukis' .168. Freshman Kelly Groc and junior Leah Ratzlaff combined for 27 of the Bluejays' 54 kills. Groc hit a match-high .556 and Ratzlaff hit .500.

The Salukis' leading hitter, junior Marissa Washington, was held to just three kills on 11 attempts and did not register a hitting percentage.

"It wasn't anything that they did," said SIU head coach Sonya Locke. "She got blocked a couple of times but that's not really anything unusual. She just did not have a good night."

The Salukis came into the weekend averaging 57 kills a match but were held to just 36 on a season-low 107 attempts Saturday. Pulliam and fellow sophomore Haley Hann were the only Salukis with double-figure kills. Pulliam led the team with 11 and Hann added 10.

After Saturday night's loss, Locke told her team it is not lacking skill or talent but is missing that one key element all winners need to succeed.

"She said that there's just something inside of us that's holding us back," Pulliam said. "We just need to let that go and have confidence in ourselves that we can do it because we know we can, it's just the fact that we need to implement that in competition."

But the Salukis' fate may have been sealed before they even stepped on the bus.

Two weeks ago SIU was swept by Dayton in the second of three matches at the Pittsburgh Classic. The Salukis had just 34 kills on 108 attempts and committed 33 attack errors for a .009 attack percentage, the worst mark in school history.

The loss was the second of their current losing streak and the Salukis have struggled ever since.

"We played terrible, and if there's any match I felt like maybe could have lingered over into this weekend, it would have been that one," Locke said.

Locke said that while the salukis may say they believe in their abilities on the court that often plays out differently in reality.

"I think that there has been a little lack of belief even though we say that we believe in ourselves," she said. "It's been displayed that maybe there's a little lack of that, but we're definitely not counting ourselves out."

The Salukis will wrap up their seven-match road trip tomorrow night against Tennessee-Martin.