Sept. 14, 2005

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"Ohhhh...Alliteration!" The chant heard from the Point Mizzou Band inside the Hearnes Center every time redshirt freshman Jilly Jaksich lets off a serve. While the double J's of her name may spawn cute cheers from students, via Webster's Dictionary, there's nothing cute about the ferocity of her play to opposing teams.

Along side Jaksich, the 5'11" defensive specialist, is redshirt sophomore Melissa Allbery, finally making her arrival after a 2003 redshirt season and a 2004 season cut short due to injury.

Jaksich graces the Hearnes Center floor this year for the first time, after spending the 2004 season on the sidelines wearing an invisible redshirt as opposed to Tiger Black & Gold. Despite this, Jaksich didn't seem to mind. "It's just another year to get better and to practice without having the pressure of actually playing, and just to improve your skills so that you can look forward to next year." She said.

Standing tall at 6'3", a talented Middle Blocker from Gretna, Neb., Allbery can be easily spotted upfront making huge blocks. She can also be picked out by the knee brace she wears every game. The brace is less of a scarlet letter and more of a reminder of Allbery's unfortunate history of injuries.

For Allbery, the injury bug has bit hard since coming to Mizzou. Having gone through a shoulder surgery, a torn ACL, and a broken hand suffered last October, Allbery is hoping to have put the bad luck of injuries behind her this season "My knee was hurting again this spring and I went in for another surgery, and I'm getting back now." Allbery said.

The injuries didn't seem to phase out Allbery who saw it only as another challenge to overcome. "A lot of people don't know about the time that you put in the training room, people just see what goes on in the game and stuff, but there's a lot of times that I spent off the court just doing the little stuff trying to get strong." She said

Allbery and Jaksich are the only two Tigers returning to the 2005 season with blank stat columns. Allbery and Jaksich are wasting no time in filling their resumes with numbers. Coming in against UMKC, Allbery managed a kill and three block-assists. Jaksich chipped in a service ace, two digs, and a block-assist, as well.

Both girls had impressive pedigrees before coming to Mizzou. Jaksich came to Columbia after playing in three state championship games at Papillion-LaVista high school, in Papillion, Neb. Jaksich was named All-Metro honorable mention in 2002 and 2003 and was a team co-captain as a senior. She was also named an Omaha World-Herald Outstanding Scholar.

Allbery was first team All-Conference her junior and senior seasons and was named to the Class B All-State first team as a senior. Allbery was also the Valedictorian of her class, a member of National Honor Society, and earned six Academic All-State honors.

While both girls are outstanding athletes, they feel their strengths lie in different areas. ""I definitely like blocking, and just being tricky." Allbery said. Jaksich could some up her duties in one word, "Defense." She said. "I like to dig. That's my favorite part and I think it's what I do best."

Nothing is holding back Allbery or Jaksich now, as the Tigers continue to climb in the rankings, Allbery and Jaksich remain poised and ready to take advantage of any opportunity that comes their way. "Every time you get an opportunity you have to be ready." Allbery said. "It's not always us getting out there on the court, it's helping out in practice to put the tips in and put up the big block and do stuff like that."

"We play so much in practice that it's almost second nature. It's kind of like a job; it's what you do, when they tell you to go in, you go in to do your job. You're excited and a little nervous but it's mostly fun just to get out there." Jaksich added.

Hopefully as the Tigers crawl deeper into the conference season we will be hearing more chants for Alliteration, seeing more big blocks out of Allbery and witnessing clutch performance and maturation out of both of Allbery and Jaksich, as they finally get their chance to impress.