Reserves get good experience in loss 
The South Carolina Volleyball team took a break from their early regular season to host the Slovenian women’s national team in an exhibition, where the Slovenians would win in a three set sweep.
“Our starting team looked to be a tentative and a little bit on their heels,” said coach Scott Swanson. “Slovenia came out and hit hard just like we thought they would and just like we practiced. But as far as a match situation goes, it definitely didn’t turn out they way we wanted it to.”
South Carolina came into Wednesday’s match trying to continue a strong start to its season. The Gamecocks are coming off a four-win sweep at the Gamecock Invitational, beating Temple, Akron, East Tennessee State and UNC-Ashville. USC still holds the best record in the SEC at four wins and zero losses as they head back to regular season competition this weekend in Fairfax, Va., at the Mason Inn Patriot Invitational.
The Slovenian national team wrapped up its southeastern tour in Columbia after traveling to other universities like Troy, Georgia State, Georgia Southern, Georgia and Clemson.
Slovenia was able to beat all of the tour teams, except for Clemson, who it lost to in a five game set. The No. 49 international squad used the college tour as a warm-up before they have to go face tougher international competition at the European championship qualifiers later this fall.
The exhibition match started out close; with five lead changes, neither team allowed for any sort of separation. It wasn’t until around the 14th point that Slovenia started to pull away with their frontline size and serving power, coupled with eight Gamecock errors.
Slovenia out blocked the Gamecocks 7.5 to 3 on the frontline, as well as out hit them .300 to -.04 to win the first set 25 to 18.
“We gave them 32 free points on missed serves and balls we hit out of bounds,” Swanson said. “We didn’t make smart swings when we should have, and our serving concerned me a bit because that is really one of our strengths.”
In the second set, the Slovenians jumped out to 10-5 lead, but it didn’t last long as South Carolina was able to fight back to even the score at 11.
From that point, the second set began to look much like the first, where teams traded points until the last set point when a Juliette Thevenin serving error gave the Slovenians the 25-23 set win.
Statistically the Gamecocks had improved in their errors and hitting percentage, but were once again out matched by the Slovenians’ hitting power and size.
“I feel like if our starting team had come out and played like they were capable of this would have been a completely different match,” Swanson said. “I thought we looked a little intimidated because we have some young girls playing against some very older, more experienced savvy women.”
The third set saw many of South Carolina’s reserves come on for playing experience. Through the first half of the third set, Slovenia kept a steady five-point lead on the Gamecocks until the reserves came out with a barrage of kills and digs off tough serves to tie the score to 17 to 17.
From that moment on the third set went point for point until Slovenia served an ace for the final point to down the Gamecocks in the final set, 25-21, for the three set sweep.
“The reserves performance was a really good surprise,” Swanson said. “We passed a lot better than I thought we would, we started digging balls, and they began to dig in, and it was a good opportunity for them to show what they can do.”