MU volleyball defeats KU
Published Oct. 30, 2007
Coming into Saturday having lost three matches in a row and with No. 1 Nebraska looming on Wednesday in Lincoln, Neb., the last thing Missouri needed was to suffer a letdown against Kansas.
The Tigers pulled out the match in five games, but the Jayhawks didn't make it easy on MU. Missouri had to gut out a third game 33-31, and they left Horejsi Arena in Lawrence, Kan., winners, 30-32, 30-22, 33-31, 26-30, 15-12.
"Anytime you play Kansas, either here or away, they're always competitive because it is such a huge rivalry," coach Wayne Kreklow said. "I'm proud of our players for pulling this one out."
The Jayhawks (10-13, 3-10 Big 12) had an astonishing 43 errors, hitting just .147 for the match. Yet they almost won the match because the Tigers could only hit .219 for the match, including .098 in the first game and .077 in the fourth.
"It was a very sloppily played match all around," Kreklow said.
After being swept in three consecutive matches against Top 15 opponents, senior libero Tatum Ailes said merely getting a win was huge for the psyche of MU (13-9, 6-7).
"It was an enormous confidence booster, winning this game was," she said. "It gave everyone a good feeling to know that we can win on the road without playing our best."
Kreklow did say that the three losses had been wearing the team down but that everyone had been staying positive.
"One thing we focus on is to not lose sight of things that we're doing well," he said. "You have to focus on the things that we're doing excellently."
Senior outside hitter Na Yang had 22 kills, which led the team. But she said the Jayhawks kept zoning in on her, contributing to why she had 16 blocks, a high total for an outside hitter.
"They went after me a lot, whenever they could," she said. "They did whatever they could do to put me in trouble, but I fought out of it."
The rest of the offense was very spread out for the Tigers. Freshman middle blocker Weiwen Wang had 15 kills, two others had 12 and two more had 10.
"We have to be balanced, and that's what we were tonight," Kreklow said. "We don't have just one person who can step up other than Na on offense, so we have to have a number of people play better. It does present a number of problems because after Na, they can't zone in on one person."
The win moves the Tigers back toward the .500 conference record they will almost certainly need to make the NCAA Tournament. When the Tigers were trailing in the fifth game, Kreklow said it did enter his mind how disastrous a loss would have been.
"I'd be lying if I didn't say it entered my mind," he said. "But we have to expect every match will be hard, whether it's Kansas or whoever. And this match was hard."
