Georgia volleyball team was hopeful to get back to its winning ways this weekend when the Bulldogs hosted Kentucky and Tennessee at the Ramsey Center.

But a bounce back didn’t happen as Georgia lost 3-1 Friday night to the Wildcats and, in straight sets, to the Volunteers Sunday afternoon.

“We know we have a lot to work on,” senior Maria Taylor said. “The good news is it’s the beginning of the Southeastern Conference, so we have a lot to improve on. We can only go up from here, so I think it’s a positive outlook, but knowing that we have to grow ourselves in order to get better.”

Georgia (7-8) now sits alone at the bottom of the SEC east standings at 0-4. The team has lost its last five matches, and head coach Joel McCartney said he worries that the team is getting into a rut.

“We are just falling into a pattern of behavior here and we need to get out of that,” he said. “We have a young, very impressionable group and we need strength and . positive leadership to get us through this drought.”

The team lacks cohesion, and several times there was confusion on the part of players when going after digs. But McCartney said he feels that his players will find cohesiveness and break out of their slump.

“It’s a pretty tough stretch to open the SEC, but we’re optimistic, with the group that we have, that we’ll rebound and utilize the rest of the homestretch here to do some good things.”

McCartney said he knows that with such a young team, he must be the one to show them how to win.

“I just want to come back, manage things and make sure we are putting a positive, confident message in the minds of our athletes, and not getting down or allowing ourselves to feel like we are unequipped to make a good run in the SEC here.”

Georgia will now compete in matches next weekend against the leaders of the SEC west, Ole Miss and Arkansas, respectively. Being a senior, Taylor said she knows the team can’t let down in any matches the rest of the way.

“We can’t hang our heads because next week we have two more matches and it’s going to be a hard match every day in the SEC,” she said.