Mizzou volleyball gears up for its final non-conference tournament, making the short drive to Macomb, Illinois. After a 2-2 week, the Tigers sit at 5-3 overall, looking to rack up wins before SEC play starts. Here’s what you need to know from this past week heading to the Leatherneck Invitational.
Flexing the Depth
The Tigers won both matches against Wyoming and Rhode Island. These lower-level teams gave Mizzou the opportunity to get playing time for some players who saw limited action through the first part of the season. In the game against Wyoming, Grace O’Reilly racked up nine kills to tie her previous high at Long Beach State. She immediately broke that total with 11 in the second match of the day. Grace has made a late push for that final starting spot at right side; the position seems more and more open by the day.
Croatian freshman Nina Mandovic saw her first major action as the sole setter against Rhode Island. Mandovic finished the match with a near double-double, racking up 20 assists and seven digs.
The real star of the show was outside hitter Asia Harvey, who saw her first ever collegiate action as a freshman. Harvey started with a but of a rougher performance against Wyoming, racking up five kills but finishing with seven errors. However, she stuck with it, bouncing back with a seven-kill performance while hitting .294.
“As a freshman, you still have nerves,” head coach Dawn Sullivan said, “so it was really nice to be able to allow her to work through some of those nerves…[against] Rhode Island, she tore it up. And so that was just really fun to continue to see her handle those emotions on the court.”
While Asia is not likely to see a lot of playing time in SEC play, getting those game reps whenever possible will benefit her development as a player and make her more ready whenever she is eventually called upon.
Analyzing Errors
One thing that Sullivan talked about during this week’s media availability was the amount of errors, specifically on the attacking end, committed in losses to Stanford and TCU.
“I think it’s more we’re a little too high error in situations,” Sullivan said. “We handle it, but after a while, we have to still continue to put that ball in bounds….when you make over five errors a set, you’re going to lose, is what I’ll say…yes, it was our opponent, but for me it’s more us.”
As Sullivan alluded to, Mizzou finished with 19 attacking errors against TCU while the Horned Frogs finished with 12. Janet deMarrais led the Tigers in kills but also led the team in attacking errors with nine. Caylen Alexander racked up 15 kills alongside seven errors in the process.
If Mizzou hopes to not only compete, but win, against the elite teams around the nation, they need to focus on putting the ball in bounds.
Player Spotlight: Regan Haith
One player who has consistently showed up for Mizzou has been middle blocker Regan Haith. Now in her senior season, Haith has come into her own from an offensive perspective. Through eight matches she has 57 kills, with double-digit performances in three of those. Her hitting percentage sits at .383, the second highest on the team including players with 50-plus kills. Finally, Haith’s 1.97 kills per set is up from 1.59 last season.
“I think we trust our setters to get us the ball at any moment,” Haith said. “Marina Crownover does a great job at just finding us in different situations, to get us one-on-ones, and she just trusts us to kill the ball and score. And I think just the personality on and off the court just works really well for us to connect and score points.”
While we’ve talked about the struggle of the block so far this season, that has not seemed to affect the work of Haith so far this season. She has recorded 28 total blocks this season, and her average blocks per set has seen an increase from 2024, currently sitting at 0.97. I think the sky is the limit for Regan, and averaging over 1.00 block per set come SEC play is not out of the question.
Haith and the rest of the Tigers will compete in the Leatherneck Invitational, starting today at 11 a.m. against Valparaiso. It appears all three matches Mizzou plays will be available to watch on ESPN+, hooray!
