Feb. 5, 2009
Columbia, Mo. - The No. 13 Missouri Tigers have turned up the heat on the road, but now the squad is hoping to put the pieces together and put on a show for the home crowd.
The Tigers will take on in-state rival S.E. Missouri State at 6:30 p.m. Friday in the Hearnes Center. Doors open at 5 p.m.
Head Coach Rob Drass said he expects stiff competition from the visiting Redhawks.
"I think SEMO's a good team. Tom's done a fantastic job coaching there," he said. "They've been to a regional three to four years in a row now. They're going to be a formidable team I think they can hit the 195.000 mark. It's going to take our best meet of the year to go beat them."
This is just the second home meet for Mizzou, who are now 5-1 after taking first place against three Big 10 foes in Columbus, Ohio last weekend. The squad put together its best meet yet, posting a 195.375 overall. The Tigers also put up some of their best event numbers of the season, going 49.150 on bars -- a season high -- and 49.025 on floor.
Drass believes his team can pull together and post a complete meet for the home crowds on Friday.
"We're just looking to put a complete meet together. We got three out of four events last week," he said. We're looking fantastic. We're hoping to hit all four and see what we're worth."
The Tigers will be looking to its top performers to continue the success they've had in the first half of the regular season. Junior Sarah Shire (Columbia, Mo.) has won three of four all-around titles this year, with the fourth going to her teammate, senior Adrianne Perry (Columbia, Mo.). Meanwhile, senior Alicia Hatcher (Blue Springs, Mo.) has been putting up consistently high numbers on the uneven bars and balance beam, and freshman all-arounder Mary Burke (Inverness, Ill.) has improved with every showing.
Meanwhile, Missouri is looking for a big home crowd to back the Tigers.
"Your home crowd is always a benefit," Drass said. "They're always cheering for you and in your corner. We're hoping to see another large crowd tomorrow night, that helped us to battle back last time. We anticipate a great meet."
Stay with mutigers.com for the latest news and updates from the meet this weekend.
Scouting S.E. Missouri State The Redhawks are currently on top of the standings in the Midwest Independent Conference and No. 33 in the country with an average score of 193.455 this season. This will be SEMO's fourth dual meet -- they are 3-0 against opponents Illinois State, Illinois-Chicago and Texas Women's. They also finished first against Southern Utah and Centenary last week, and placed second between LSU and Iowa in their second meet.
Junior Rikara Turner is the Redhawks' top all-around threat ; she has captured three all-around titles this year, and finished second last week with a career high of 39.100.
Missouri leads the series 24-8 all time against SEMO. The Tigers took the teams' last meeting last February, 195.425 - 193.500
Missouri breaks out on bars The Tiger squad can now add uneven bars to their list of events where they've broken the 49.000 mark -- Missouri posted a 49.150 on the event at Ohio State. Their previous high had been 48.725. Leading the pack was junior Sarah Shire, who broke her career high on the event with a 9.900. Senior Adrianne Perry (9.875) and freshman Mary Burke (9.850) also posted season highs.
Burke puts it all together Freshman Mary Burke has improved her all-around score with every meet -- starting the season with a 38.275 against Iowa State and progressing to a 39.150 last week at Ohio State. The freshman placed third in the all-around and is picking up the college competition quickly. Against Ohio State, she posted a season high if 9.850 on the bars, while posting some of her highest scores this season on beam (9.725) and floor (9.800).
Tigers light up the floor Choreographer Amy Smith and the Tiger squad have been working hard on floor routines, and it shows. Missouri is ranked No. 10 nationally on the floor with an average of 48.925. That's also good enough for third in the Big 12, just over one-hundreth of a point behind second-place Nebraska. Contributing to that total in a big way have been senior Adrianne Perry and junior Sarah Shire. Perry is ranked 7th (avg. 9.875) on the event, while Shire is ranked 24th (avg. 9.844). Perry is second while Shire is fourth in the Big 12.
Keeping it consistent -- while breaking records Through the first four meets, it's already been a big year for the Tigers. Junior Sarah Shire has already set three new career highs on vault (9.925), bars (9.900) and beam (9.925), and senior Alicia Hatcher set a personal best on floor (9.775) one week after tying it. Tiger sophomores have been bringing the heat, too -- Lauren Stephenson posted a new career high on beam (9.725), and tied her personal best on vault (9.800), while Alex Gold shattered her career high on vault (now 9.900).
Meanwhile, the Mizzou squad is standing down for consistency, one of their biggest preseason goals. Hatcher has been one of the biggest contributors -- she has hit a 9.750 or better on bars for four weeks in a row and 9.850 or better on beam for the first three weeks, as well as a 9.750 on floor two weeks in a row. Gold has notched a 9.725 or better on floor for the first three weeks in a row, and Perry and Shire combined have scored a 9.7 or better in every meet on every event but four.
Mizzou finds success in multiple meets The Tigers have now participated in 32 multiple team meets since Head Coach Rob Drass took over in 2000. In those meets, Missouri has an impressive record -- 63-31, including 14 outright wins. Those 14 wins include six Cat Classic titles. Last season, the Tigers were 3-3 in regular season multi-team meets -- they finished second at the Cat Classic and third at the Salbasgeon Suites Invitational in Corvallis, Ore.
Fifth annual `Pink Out' raises over $1,000, breaks records The Tigers' first home meet, designated the Pink Out, raised just over $1,000 for the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center.
The crowd of 3,459 was the largest Pink Out and opening night crowd in Missouri history. It was also the third largest non-Cat Classic crowd in program history.