Entering last Friday, Missouri volleyball (12-4, 4-2 Southeastern Conference) had been riding a wave of momentum. The team was 3-1 in SEC play and just laid the smackdown on Louisiana State University, the team that was expected to win the SEC West, when it returned to the Hearnes Center to host unranked Texas A&M.
But to the surprise of the fans attending the match, the Aggies broke that momentum and beat the Tigers 3-1 (20-25, 25-23, 23-25, 17-25) on Friday.
Statistically speaking, the Tigers had a successful outing. Junior outside hitter Lisa Henning led the team with 20 kills, marking her third game of the season with at least 20 kills. Sophomore libero Sarah Meister and junior setter Molly Kreklow accounted for 37 digs on the match. Sophomore middle blocker Whitney Little led the defense with five solo blocks and 13.5 team blocks.
But after splitting the first two sets before the break, the Tigers couldn’t stop the Aggies’ offensive charge. Missouri trailed for the majority of the third set, but a Henning kill pulled the Tigers up 20-19. Then the Aggies responded with three straight kills and held the lead to take the third set 25-23. In the final set, the Aggies led by as many as eight to win 25-17.
Missouri committed 20 errors on the loss, something coach Wayne Kreklow considered unacceptable after the game.
“I didn’t think we came out ready play tonight, and that is what I am most disappointed in,” Kreklow said. “Texas A&M deserves a lot of credit, because they forced us to play into their strengths, but I think the bottom line was that we weren’t ready to play.”
The Tigers failed to overcome their own mistakes, Henning said.
“I think we beat ourselves more than they beat us,” Henning said. “I just think tomorrow is going to be focused on things we need to do to get better and things that we did wrong.”
The day after the game, the Tigers practiced to ready themselves for Sunday’s game against Georgia. Instead of punishing his players for their poor performance, Wayne Kreklow had a calm attitude, players said.
“He tried to get us to focus on being ready for anything,” Little said. “Everyone was hustling through every drill and focusing on every little thing.”
And on Sunday, the team had an entirely new mindset. The Tigers defeated Georgia in three straight sets (25-15, 25-23, 25-11), forcing the Bulldogs to commit a whopping 28 errors and holding them to a negative attacking average in the first and third sets.
Wayne Kreklow said he was proud of the bounce back.
“I think everybody was really frustrated,” he said. “As a group, we all felt like we just didn’t really play our best, and you can’t do that against someone like Texas A&M or anybody in the league. Overall, I feel like we’ve done a good job of showing up to play every game, but it felt like we came out sluggish on Friday.”
Little, who tied the MU record in her fourth match of the season with double-digit blocks, said she and the Tigers had regained the focus that was missing from Friday’s loss.
“I though we really came out strong and showed people that Friday was behind us and that we were still moving forward,” she said. “We actually played our game instead of nonchalantly went through the motions like we did on Saturday.”
Henning agreed.
“I thought we really came back strong from Friday,” Henning said. “I think we were mentally and physically ready to play today. We were excited to play and ready to be here. It was just a different feeling from Friday.”
