Wang leads team despite sprain

By Sam Wilson

Published Dec. 4, 2007

Entering a first-round NCAA Tournament match against sixth-seeded Washington on Friday night in Seattle, coach Wayne Kreklow said he felt college volleyball is becoming more like another sport because his team has a better chance to pull an upset. The 30-23, 28-30, 30-22, 32-34, 15-11 loss lived up to the billing, as the Tigers were in contention for the match until the end.

"I think that given the current state of women's volleyball collegiately, it very much now has become like men's basketball," Kreklow said. "There's a lot of parity out there. There's a lot of good teams."

Kreklow's team almost pulled off an upset that would have been reminiscent of something from March. The Tigers had been on the bubble, unsure they would get in to the NCAA Tournament until they saw their logo on the selection show. They drew Washington, ranked No. 6 in the nation, and the match would be on the Huskies' home court.

Missouri (17-13) won games two and four, with the Huskies taking games one and three. By forcing a fifth game, the Tigers were only the second unseeded team in eight years to force a seeded team to five games in the first round.

Game five began, and the Huskies scored the first two points. Kreklow took a time-out to cool the Washington momentum. Shortly thereafter, sophomore setter Lei Wang sprained her ankle. Kreklow said the ActiveAnkle brace his players wear allowed Wang to stay in the game. But Kreklow had to burn his second time-out so Wang could get over the initial pain.

Wang's later return inspired her teammates to continue to play well in game five.

"It just kind of showed the determination and the heart that she has and how much she cares about this team by just going through that pain," sophomore Megan Wilson said. "It just motivates everybody else to be like, 'Wow, Lei's hurt and out here working as hard as she can, I can at least give a little bit to this team.'"

With Wang playing through the pain, the Tigers and Huskies played to a tie at 11 in the fifth game. But Washington took the last four points of the match and won the fifth game, 15-11. Kreklow said he would have liked to take a time-out to slow down the Huskies, but under the circumstances, he didn't have one to use. The coach and his team wrote the ending off as a bad break.

"They had a strong crowd behind them," senior libero Tatum Ailes said. "And I think a lot of it, too, was their experience over our experience because of a couple key points in that run. We have a lot of young players and they have a lot of experienced players. I don't think it was a lack of talent or anything."

Both Ailes and senior outside hitter Na Yang had career nights in their final match. Ailes had 39 digs in the match, a Big 12 single-match record.

Yang had 26 kills, which gave her 522 on the season, an MU single-season record.

"They were just simply outstanding," Kreklow said. "They both had not just great nights that night, but they both had great seasons this year. I think I've been particularly happy with them for different reasons."

Yang's ability to maintain consistency impressed Kreklow.

"She's really played at a high level and really put out the kind of effort that you have to do in order to be a top-level player in this conference," Kreklow said.

Kreklow said Ailes had developed her leadership abilities.

"She's always been a very focused player, always been one of our hardest working players," Kreklow said. "But - and we've talked about this quite a bit - in order to be a true leader, you really have to be able to be comfortable enough with your own self and your own game that you can shift a lot of your focus to the people around you."