The Missouri volleyball squad didn’t start its first nationally televised game since 2005 the way it would have liked.
Coming into Wednesday’s match, The Tigers held a 13-3 record. They were tied for the second most wins in the NCAA. The match marked the 13th away match for Missouri before it would return to its home court.
The road trip ended in a loss for the Tigers, as they were swept by No. 16 Iowa State at the Hilton Coliseum.
Falling behind 16-4 in the first set of the Big 12 season opener, the young Tiger defense struggled early with the Cyclone attack.
While five of the Cyclone attackers had kills by the time they earned 20 points, the Tigers totaled just four kills as a team. When Iowa State committed its lone kill error in the set, Missouri gained momentum.
Cutting the opponent’s lead to 20-10, the Tigers attempted to rally, but the set was already out of reach and the Cyclones took the first set.
The second match called for a close score through the first half. Missouri gained its first lead of the match at 4-3 after Iowa State came out with a 3-0 start against the Tigers.
Missouri then committed several errors, which the Cyclones used to pull away from the struggling young team. At 13-19, coach Wayne Kreklow called a timeout in hopes of getting his Tigers back in the fight.
Although the team closed the gap to a 20-16 score, Iowa State held on for another victory heading into intermission.
The beginning of the third set was much like the previous play of the match, as Iowa State built a 7-1 lead over the Tigers. But Missouri fought back, making the score 13-10 Iowa State, with the help of senior libero Priscilla Armendariz and sophomore setter Molly Kreklow.
Play rallied back and forth as neither team seemed to be able to hang on to service through the middle of the set.
With a 22-19 deficit, Kreklow again called a time out in one final effort to hold off the Cyclones. But once again, Iowa State scored the final three points and swept the Tigers for the team’s first conference victory on the season.
Sophomore outside hitter Lisa Henning led the Tigers in the loss with 13 kills while freshman outside hitter Emily Wilson finished with eight.
The Tigers hit just .191 on the match, compared to the Cyclones’ .402 hitting average. Iowa State tallied 50 kills, while Missouri only hit 31 on Molly Kreklow’s 27 assists.
The loss also marked the Kreklow family’s 900th match as a pair, this including their time with Columbia College and when Susan Kreklow was the head coach for the Missouri volleyball program before her husband took over.
The Tigers will continue conference play at home at 2 p.m. Saturday against Texas A&M.
