No. 19 Missouri volleyball dominated over Marshall and Middle Tennessee with back-to-back wins Friday at the Culver’s Governor’s Challenge in Clarksville, Tennessee to open its 2017 campaign.
Against Marshall, the Tigers pulled off an impressive comeback to take down the Thundering Herd. Mizzou was on the brink of losing after falling behind two sets to one, but fought back behind redshirt senior Kira Larson’s serving. The Tigers finished out the set on a 15-3 run, winning 25-22 after trailing 19-10.
In the tie-breaking fifth set, Mizzou pushed points to get ahead on another serving run by Larson. A 6-0 scoring run to open the set propelled the Tigers ahead, as the team quickly jumped ahead to 15 points to take the victory, 15-9.
Freshman Leketor Member-Meneh dominated in her first regular season game as a Tiger. Member-Meneh contributed 22 kills, 11 digs and recorded her first career double-double.
“The game was kind of sporadic when I first got in, but I definitely wasn’t nervous,” Member-Meneh said in a press release. “I just knew that I had to stay calm and make sure to pump up the people around me like I try to do in practice. I feel like it all worked out.”
Other notable performances came from redshirt senior Melanie Crow, who recorded 14 kills and eight digs, and senior Courtney Eckenrode, who registered 36 assists, four aces, eight digs and two total blocks. Junior middle blocker Alyssa Munlyn shined with seven kills and five total blocks.
“I thought we showed a lot of resiliency in the first match against Marshall,” head coach Wayne Kreklow said in the press release. “They’re a very good team and we got off to a slow start. We re-grouped and executed better as the match went on and we were able to come away with the win.”
To continue their success on opening day, the Tigers finished up their doubleheader with a sweep of Middle Tennessee.
Mizzou won the first and second sets 25-7 and 25-13, respectively. Slipping a bit in the third, the Tigers were able to come away with the sweep after winning 25-20.
Larson had seven kills during the match and continued her strong serving to lead the team, earning a career-high five aces. Munlyn also carried her success over to the second match with six kills and two total blocks.
“I was pleased with our performance in the serve and pass game against Middle Tennessee,” Kreklow said in the press release. “We will have to re-group for two tough matches tomorrow.”
Mizzou will end the tournament Saturday with matches against Northern Iowa at 10 a.m. CT and Austin Peay at 3 p.m. CT.
_Edited by Eli Lederman | elederman@themaneater.com_
