Sept. 18, 2007
 |
Kansas at Missouri Volleyball Quick Links
Multimedia
Coaches
Series Matchup
Of Note
|
COLUMBIA, Mo.— The 76th volleyball contest between the Missouri Tigers and Kansas Jayhawks will take place Wednesday night, starting at 6:30 p.m., in the Hearnes Center and will kick off the sixth Border Showdown presented by Midwest Ford Dealers. Those with a ticket stub from last Saturday's Mizzou-Western Michigan football game will receive admission for only $2.
The Border Showdown
The Missouri-Kansas Border Showdown, presented by Midwest Ford Dealers, will kick off in the 2007-08 school season with the first-of-two volleyball meetings. The Border Showdown, now in its sixth year as a multi-sport contest between the schools, was won last year by Mizzou 25-14. Starting with the inaugural season in 2002-03, the schools have alternated overall wins each year, with Mizzou having an overall 3-2 advantage over the past five.
Wednesday's volleyball contest will be the 76th between the squads as Kansas continues to be Mizzou's all-time most-played opponent in the sport. One-and-a-half points will go towards the Border Showdown tally for the winner of each of the teams' meetings this season. Mizzou will play at Kansas on October 27.
The first volleyball meeting took place on October 31, 1975, and Mizzou took the two-game sweep in Springfield, Mo., 15-10, 15-7. Since, Mizzou has won a total of 44 matches to 31 for Kansas over the span of 32 years. Mizzou at one point had an eight-match winning streak that lasted from 1982 to 1985. But, Kansas won 17 of 22 contests from 1986 to 1996. Since 2000, when Susan and Wayne Kreklow took the Mizzou helm, the Tigers have won 12 of 14 meetings and six straight.
The first meeting of any kind between Missouri and Kansas dates back to 1891 when the two schools formed football squads that played one another in Kansas City. With 115 games played, the Border Showdown in football is the Big 12's most-longstanding series in terms of overall meetings. In football, the overall series is now tied 53-53-9.
Track and field started at Missouri in 1901. During the first indoor seasons, the two teams meet several times at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City and put on quite a show. The Tigers won the first baseball game, 13-4, between the two schools in 1901.
Schedule Change
The Tigers' match versus Baylor, originally scheduled for Saturday, November 3, has been moved to Friday, November 2. The match time will remain at 6:30 p.m.
Scouting Kansas …
Kansas comes into the match having dropped their first two matches against Big 12 opponents. After falling to Kansas State at home Sept. 12, 3-0, they dropped their match this pas weekend at Oklahoma, 3-1. After losing the first two sets, Kansas rallied to stay alive with a 30-27 win in game three before dropping the fourth set to the Sooners, 30-17.
Freshman OH Jenna Kaiser (16 kills) and junior MB/RS Savannah Noyes (15 kills) led the Jayhawks' attack. Noyes also earned a .296 hitting percentage. Also performing well for Kansas was senior RS/S Emily Brown, who led the team with 11 digs and 34 assists to go along with ten kills.
The Jayhawks struggled defensively against Oklahoma, as four of six Sooners who recorded attempted attacks hit over .300 percent on the match. Kansas also currently ranks last in the Big 12 in digs per game, averaging only 13.71 per match.
After a somewhat promising start to the season, the Jayhawks have struggled in Big 12 play. They rank in the lower half of all Big 12 offensive categories, and own the bottom spot in hitting percentage, with an average of only .132.
The youth of this Kansas team will be tested again by a good Missouri team. The Jayhawks have been led thus far by mostly freshmen and sophomores. Freshman OH Karina Garlington is second the team in hitting percentage (.264), while sophomore MB Brittany Williams ranks third (.251). The Jayhawks return only four upperclassmen to go along with seven sophomores and five freshmen.
Kansas has lost six matches in a row to the Tigers, and eight of their last nine meetings overall. The Jayhawks' last win against Missouri came in 2003 with a five-set win in Lawrence. Kansas, picked to finish last in the Big 12 in a preseason poll, looks to avoid its first 0-3 Big 12 start since 1997, when they went 2-18 overall in Big 12 play.
-- Blair Miller
- Mizzou leads the overall series, 44-31 and is 9-2 against Kansas in September
- The Tigers have won 22 of 31 home meetings between the squads, last losing to the Jayhawks in the Hearnes on November 13, 2001 in four
- How about this? Mizzou has not lost the fourth home match of the season under the Kreklows, but are 1-3 against Kansas when they are the fourth guest of the Hearnes
- Combined with the Tigers latest efforts against Kansas State, they are on a eight-match winning streak against teams from the Sunflower State, dating back to 2004
- The Tigers are on a six-match winning strike on the 19th of the month, having won three straight on September 19 alone.
Klein's ACL is a Sideliner
The results from an MRI test conducted on September 10 came back with unsavory results as Mizzou OH sophomore Julianna Klein (Keota, Iowa) was diagnosed with a torn ACL in her left knee which was a result of an injury suffered in a September 8 match versus Houston in San Marcos, Texas.
In the third of four games against Houston, with the Tigers up 20-12, Klein went to attack a ball and then came down in pain.
Klein was leading Mizzou with 4.44 kills per game, up from her 2.75 average her freshman season and stood fourth in the Big 12 in the category. In addition, Klein's defense showed much improvement as her digs-per-game shot from 0.75 her frosh campaign to 2.85 this season, resulting in the first five kill-dig double-doubles of her career. Along with leading Mizzou with 0.48 service aces per game, Klein was third in the Big 12 with 5.30 points per game, behind only 2006 National Player of the Year Sarah Pavan of Nebraska and All-American Destinee Hooker of Texas.
Despite not playing in the final match of the CenturyTel Premier against host Texas State, Klein was named the tournament's MVP, scoring 5.67 kills per game on a .342 hitting strike for the Tigers while adding 3.33 digs per game and scoring 6.67 points per game.
Klein was also named to Ole Miss' Magnolia Classic All-Tournament team, opening the season with a career-best 26 kills against the Rebels.
Lei Wang Plays Extra Role
With the sidelining of Klein, sophomore S Lei Wang (Shanghai, China) has added a new piece of her play. In the matches since Klein's injury, the Tigers have employed the 6-2 offense in various points of the match. When this occurs and Wang rotates to the front row, senior transfer Luiza Jarocka (Warsaw, Poland) subs in to the back row and plays setter while Wang become a right-side hitter in the front row. Against Texas, Wang connected on four kills that were non-setter dumps and shot cross-court through the Longhorn defense.
Milestone Watch
- Senior Na Yang moved into 10th place all-time at Mizzou in kills with her performance against Florida International, and since, she has landed eighth having 1,104 overall … Yang is just 52 kills from passing Nicole Wilson for fifth (1,156) and joining Shen Danru, Jessica Vander Kooi, Christi Myers, and Yvette Buhlig in the Mizzou Big-Five Club, all of which had over 1,450 kills in their careers.
- With 22.5 points over UMKC, Yang reached Mizzou's all-time top 10 in points scored and is at 1248.5 currently … Yang is now 277.5 points from Mizzou's all-time top five.
- Senior Tatum Ailes already holds the Mizzou all-time record in digs with 1,628, but how high will the bar be set? … against Texas on September 15, Ailes became the 17th Tiger to play in their 100th match at Mizzou.
- Sophomore Amanda Hantouli quietly keeps creeping up Mizzou's all-time blocks per game list … since she became eligible for the category earlier this season, she has crept from eighth all time to her current standing of fourth all-time with 0.89 blocks per game and is just a smaller fraction from passing Krista Johnson on the list … in the last five matches, Hantouli has scored 1.19 bpg.
Frosh Proving Big In the Middle (and outside and in the back row)
True freshman Weiwen Wang (Nanjing, China) had started to become quite a dominate factor in the middle for the Tiger front-line. But, with the recent injury to OH Julianna Klein, Wang has had to adjust, playing some outside hitter while adding swings and more defense in the back row.
In addition, “Wendy” has been a knock-out behind the serving line in the last five matches, scoring 10 aces within the last six matches.
Notes to Keep in Mind … 2006 Revisited
- The Tigers are coming off a 2006 campaign that included a seventh-consecutive birth to the NCAA Tournament. As a result, Mizzou and Nebraska are now the only programs in the Big 12 Conference to have made the post-season every year since 2000.
- Mizzou won their first-round matchup in the tournament for the third-straight year in 2006, knocking off No. 21 Santa Clara in a three-game sweep in Palo Alto, Calif. The Tigers forced eventual national runner-up Stanford to a five-game thriller in the second round on the Cardinal's home floor, coming back from a game down and 16-10 deficit in the fourth stanza to produce a fifth-game.
- Despite an 18-13 final record in 2006, the end-of-the-season surge produced a No. 21 final ranking in the AVCA Top 25, marking Mizzou's third-straight year among the nation's best. Only 15 teams have been sited on at least the last three final national polls.
Preseason Impressions
The coaches of the Big 12 picked Mizzou to finish third in the Big 12 Conference this season. Defending National and Conference Champion Nebraska was picked to win for the fourth-straight year. Texas was voted second. Truth-be-told, the voting for the third through ninth spots was incredibly close. Right on the Tigers' heels (or tail) in the voting was Texas A&M and Colorado. Iowa State and Kansas State were very close in voting as well. Oklahoma, finished second in the league last year, is picked ninth this season. It should be a very interesting season in the league.
The national impression of the league is also striking. Nebraska was the coaches' preseason pick to at national No. 1. Texas is also expected to have a big year, they ranked 4th in the preseason national poll. The Tigers had a No. 20 preseason ranking with Oklahoma, mentioned earlier that they were picked to finish ninth in the league, had a No. 22 preseason standing, ending the 2006 season with a No. 12 ranking. Texas A&M, Colorado, and Iowa State all received votes in the poll.
Senior Salute
At no time in Mizzou volleyball history have players entered the season with as much playing experience in the NCAA Tournament as seniors Tatum Ailes and Na Yang. Helping the Tigers to their seventh-postseason run in 2006, both Yang and Ailes have played eight NCAA Tournament matches in their previous three years at Mizzou which includes a run to the field's round of eight in 2005.
Both Ailes and Yang were named to this season's Preseason All-Big 12 team, and for Ailes, she became the first defensive player in league history to earn such an honor.
Ailes (Bellevue, Neb.) returns for her senior campaign fresh from an appearance on Team USA's A2-national training team this spring and returns to the team having been the Tigers' starting libero for three seasons. Meanwhile, Ailes has already made a lasting impression on the Mizzou program as the squad's all-time leader in digs and digs per game. In 2005, the coaches of the Big 12 named Ailes as Libero of the Year.
Yang (Shan Dong, China) is in her senior campaign as well and has an accomplished record from her previous three years at Mizzou. Yang has shown prowess during the regular season, but her numbers in the post-season are the outside-hitter's bread-and-butter. In eight NCAA Tournament matches, Yang has averaged 4.10 kills per game on a .304 hitting percentage.
Sophomore Surge
A very large, and important, piece of this year's puzzle is four returning Tigers in their second year of eligibility. The Class of '09 will vital in Mizzou's “Unleashing”.
Setter Lei Wang is already going into her second full year of leading the Tiger offense, coming off a successful frosh season in leading the Tigers to the NCAA Tournament with a 12.46 assists per game, 2.39 digs per game, and 0.98 points per game average. During the Big 12 season, Wang averaged 12.86 assists per game, ranking fifth in the league. Wang recorded 63 assists in the five-game NCAA second-round match at Stanford and was a crucial component of the Tiger game-four comeback, as Mizzou hit nearly .500 (13-2-24) from when the Tigers were down 16-10 to when Mizzou won the frame 30-25.
Keota, Iowa, native Julianna Klein stepped up during her true freshman season, finding a starting role in 18 matches last season. Klein scored 10-or-more kills in 16 matches last season, including scoring a season-high 21 kills versus Baylor on September 27. Against Stanford in the NCAA second round, Klein carded 14 kills and six digs. In addition, Klein's serve caught several opponents off guard early in the year as she scored 18 of her 23 aces from the season in the first 11 matches. Klein racked seven aces in an early-season tournament match against Villanova.
Amanda Hantouli started 25 matches last season as a redshirt freshman, finding her first playing time since an ACL injury sidelined the Omaha, Neb., native during her senior year in high school. Now a sophomore, Hantouli contributed 10-or-more kills in four contests and five-or-more blocks in six matches last season. Her play against Stanford in the NCAA second round gave many a picture into the possible future as she scored 10 kills on 15 attempts (.533), adding three blocks.
Megan Wilson will likely see quite a bit of playing time as a right-side hitter this season. The 6-2 sophomore from Lincoln, Neb., exposed much talent as a server as well last season. Against Stanford in the NCAA second round, Wilson added three crucial aces and served many points in efforts to throw the Cardinal offense. Wilson had three matches in 2006 with two-or-more aces.
Sparkling and New
This year's incoming freshman class will get much experience, very early. Unlike the class before that had three use redshirt seasons to refine their skills, this Class of 2010 will see time immediately.
Newcomer Caitlyn Vann comes to Mizzou from Muncie, Ind., and Burris High School. Vann, along with fellow newcomer Catie Wilson, was one of 35 to be named to the inaugural AVCA High School Senior All-American list. Vann was a three-time All-State selection at Burris, earning first-team honors in her junior and senior seasons. While Vann was recruited as a libero, she played as a left-side hitter in her years in high school, tallying 442 kills and 368 digs as team captain in her recently completed senior season. Vann was also a part of USA Volleyball's Junior National Training Team in 2006 and was before a two-year member of USAV's Youth National-A2 team.
Weiwen Wang comes to Mizzou from Nanjing, China, and is the fifth Tiger to come from the country. Wang was captain of her national-champion high school team and was a member of her country's team that won the 2006 World School Volleyball Championship in Porec, Croatia. Wang was also a member of the Chinese 15 & Under Youth National team that took third.
Catie Wilson (no relation to Megan Wilson) comes to Mizzou from Omaha, Neb., and Gross High School. Wilson, along with Vann was named to the AVCA's inaugural High School Senior All-American Team. In addition, Wilson was a four-time All-State selection, earning first-team honors in her junior and senior seasons.
###