Missouri no match for Texas Longhorns

The Tigers struggle to find their footing without Klein.

By Sam Wilson

Published Sept. 18, 2007

The Missouri volleyball team opened up Big 12 play Saturday night against No. 7 Texas.

The Longhorns performed as advertised, sweeping the Tigers.

Coach Wayne Kreklow said he was happy with the way his team competed, but they were still struggling with the loss of sophomore Julianna Klein to an anterior cruciate ligament tear.

"It just puts a lot of pressure on our players having to be almost perfect," he said.

Senior Na Yang also said the team played well.

"I think overall we were playing hard, and I think we just had several spots that were not good enough for Texas," she said.

But Yang said Texas was clearly the better team.

"I could clearly see the difference between Texas and us," she said. "They are tall and strong. We were a little bit behind."

Texas won the match 30-22, 30-24, 30-24. It was led by freshman Juliann Faucette, who had 21 kills on a .529 hitting percentage. She also had 11 digs. But Tiger sophomore Megan Wilson said she thinks her team might be able to stop Faucette when the teams meet again on Oct. 20 in Columbia.

"Those players are very stoppable," she said. "It's just us learning how to do the little things right."

Yang said there was more to Texas than simply dominant offensive players. She said her serving was impeded by a need to serve the ball short to avoid serving to Texas libero Alyson Jennings, whom Yang called "amazing."

Wilson said there were differences in mental aspects of the game.

"The difference was the mental mistakes that our side made," she said.

Yang said the team can correct its error issues, but that the good play of Texas had something to do with it.

"The difference is we can make less errors, but they forced us to make errors," she said.

Texas out hit the Tigers by a percentage of .384 to .212.

Kreklow said one of the problems was that his team allowed Texas to be on the offensive the whole match and did not attack enough.

Despite the discrepancies, the past nine meetings in the series have been won by the home team, leaving MU optimistic about the rematch, especially because the team will be more accustomed to playing without Klein.

"The maturity of our team will be a lot different," Wilson said.

Yang agreed.

"We have to face the reality that Jules is not with us," she said. "We just have to let it go and concentrate more on ourselves."

Yang also said she couldn't help but think about the what-ifs.

"I wish Jules could have played last night," she said. "Maybe it would have been a different story."

The team's second conference match of the season is Wednesday night at home against Kansas.

Yang said the team's performance on Saturday will be good enough against most of the teams in the Big 12.

"If we play like we played last night, we are going to win," she said.