Mizzou volleyball snagged defeat from the jaws of victory, losing three straight sets to Oklahoma after winning the first two. Tigers fall at Hearnes 30-28, 25-21, 20-25, 21-25, 9-15.
Oklahoma led wire-to-wire in the fifth set, never letting Mizzou force a tie. The Sooners closed the match on a 9-5 run. The Tigers struggled with serve receive, as Oklahoma racked up five aces in that set alone; the rest of the match they had six.
“Towards the later sets, they really started to pick up the pace on the serve,”
senior libero Maya Sands said. “It was harder for us on the service EV line…who’s going to take what? And just having the confidence to take those balls…I think we just could have done a better job like communicating on seams and who’s gonna take what.”
As a whole Mizzou struggled to contain/match the OU offense, losing the kill battle 76-50. The Sooners hit .401 throughout the match while kills leader Alexis Shelton with 25 while hitting .564.
“Oklahoma started to change their game plan a little bit, and I think it was just harder for us to kind of adjust to that,” Sands said. “I think we probably could have done a better job in the back row communicating on that sooner and how we adjust our defense behind that.”
Some of Mizzou’s offensive struggles came due to the Oklahoma block, finishing with 12 stuffs to the Tigers’ seven. This came as a result of the Sooner serve getting the Mizzou offense out of system. When they were out of system, the offense went to their outside hitters almost exclusively, making it predictable. The offense production of the middle blockers dropped drastically as a result, with Regan Haith and Tyrah Ariail combining for 15 kills on only 35 total attacks. By comparison, top outsides Caylen Alexander and Janet deMarrais combined for 29 kills (good!) on 72 total attacks (not great!).
“Our offense is ran through the outside. If we can’t find our middle, if they get us out of system, that is where offense is,” head coach Dawn Sullivan said. “I felt like we just needed to pass a little bit better, control that ball, and then be able to find that middle on the move a little bit more than what we did. And we just started going into what they do well, blocking the outsides.”
Mizzou volleyball won a marathon of a first set, taking the 30-28 victory for a 1-0 advantage in the match. Oklahoma led 26-25 with its only set point of the match before freshman rightside Maca Lobaglio kept the Tigers alive with her only kill of the set. The two teams were tied at 28 before an OU service error and an ace from Tyrah Ariail clinched the set for Mizzou. Neither team went on any major runs in the first set, often trading the same one or two-point lead back and forth throughout. The set featured 18 ties and nine separate lead changes.
The first set really came down to the Tigers’ ability to minimize mistakes. When looking at combined attacking and service errors, Mizzou finished with two compared to 10 for Oklahoma. Offensively Alexander made the difference with six kills and an ace in the first set.
The Tigers won the won the second set 25-21 on the back of a massive early set lead. Mizzou held a 16-6 advantage, forcing Oklahoma to expend both of its timeouts. The Sooners made it too close for comfort with a 14-7 run, bringing the deficit within three. But the Tigers survived to win the set thanks to an Alexander kill on a tremendous rally.
In addition to winning the error battle AGAIN 8-1, the Tigers held the advantage in aces 4-0. All of those Aces came from different players, showing the serving skill of this team up and down the roster. Alexander led the offensive attack again with four kills in the set along with one of the aces. Middle blocker Regan Haith finished right behind her with three kills and a block assist.
Oklahoma rebounded by winning the third set 25-20. After a 3-0 Tiger run tied the set at 15, Oklahoma went on a 4-1 run to take a lead they would never relinquish. The big difference came in the Sooners’ unrelenting attack, winning the kill battle 16-10 in the third set. Alexander, Haith and outside hitter Janet deMarrais all drove the offense in the set with three kills each.
Oklahoma won its second consecutive set 25-21, forcing a winner-take-all fifth set. Mizzou led 15-14 at the media timeout after a strategic challenge from Sullivan. Late in the set the teams were tied at 21 before the Sooners took four straights points; including three blocks. In the set Oklahoma won the block battle 5-0.
To the surprise of literally no one, Alexander led the offense in this set as well with three kills.
The Tigers fall to 1-3 in SEC play, sitting snugly in the bottom half of the conference through two weekends of play. Next up they matchup against a Florida (7-6, 2-2) team who is also reeling at 6 p.m. on Friday in Gainesville.
