Missouri volleyball has never lost a match.
At least not in its new, temporary home, Mizzou Arena.
The basketball-turned-volleyball arena was the site of Missouri’s 3-0 sweep against South Carolina on Friday, as repairs to Hearnes Center continue after it was flooded a few weeks ago.
But if the players were scatterbrained from having to adjust to a new playing court, they didn’t show it against the Gamecocks.
“We knew this one was gonna be tough,” coach Wayne Kreklow said. “They’re a good, solid team. They struggled a little bit at times and I’m sure they are not happy with the number of errors that they made at critical times. But I feel like part of that was because of what we were doing. I thought we did a really nice job of applying steady pressure from start to finish.”
The match started even, until an official review confirmed that a high, looping overpass from redshirt junior Riley Sents had landed in-bounds on South Carolina’s side, cutting the Gamecocks’ lead to 15-14. From there, the Tigers tallied three aces and won the set, 25-22.
Missouri dominated the second set, maintaining a .778 hitting percentage as it won 25-11, but South Carolina almost pegged one back in the third set, eventually losing 30-28 after a number of momentum-swinging kills and missed serves from both sides.
Sophomore Kylie Deberg led the Tigers with 16 kills and Leketor Member-Meneh chipped in eight kills and three total blocks. Middles Alyssa Munlyn and Tyanna Omazic proved clutch during a tense, final few points, and finished with a combined 18 kills on .567 hitting.
However there was one major system change employed for the first time by Missouri on Friday: Kreklow ran a 5-1 with Andrea Fuentes playing as the setter for the full rotation, while Jaden Newsome was left on the bench.
“We started with our 6-2 in Kentucky,” Kreklow said. “[Andrea] was getting into a nice rhythm there, so we kind of stuck with that a little bit more, and then this week we felt like we needed to try to get some consistency. You’re holding your breath across the front row a lot of times with her, but I thought she held her own. That helped us tonight to be less predictable.”
Missouri (13-4, 3-2 SEC) will take on Arkansas in its next match at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday at Mizzou Arena.
_Edited by Adam Cole | acole@themaneater.com_
