Carly Kan led Mizzou with 14 kills on Tuesday.
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Mizzou volleyball fell to 4-4 on the season after dropping a midweek contest to in-state rival Saint Louis, 3-2 (25-27, 25-23, 22-25, 25-19, 11-15), on Tuesday night (Sept. 9) at the Hearnes Center. Mizzou was paced by 14 kills from sophomore All-American Carly Kan (Honolulu, Hawaii), who finished just one dig shy of her sixth consecutive double-double. Classmate Loxley Keala (Kaneohe, Hawaii) did however tally her sixth consecutive double-double with 22 assists and 13 digs and senior Emily Wilson (Omaha, Neb.) tallied 13 kills on .321 hitting in the loss.
"Honestly, I am really disappointed with this one," head coach Wayne Kreklow said. "From the start we weren't ready to go and that's the way it has been with this group so far this season. When we come out ready to go, we play pretty well, but then we have days like this where we just aren't into it mentally."
Sophomore Emily Thater (Springfield, Mo.) added 11 kills, two off of her career-best, doing so on .333 hitting while adding six total blocks, including three solo stuffs. Senior Whitney Little (Keller, Texas) and junior Regan Peltier (Nixa, Mo.) each added seven kills and five and four blocks, respectively. In all, Mizzou matched its season-high with 17 blocks in the match, its most since Nov. 10, 2013, at Alabama. Senior libero Sarah Meister (San Diego, Calif.) led the team with 18 digs.
The Tigers struggled to slow the Saint Louis attack, specifically of Danielle Rygelski, who had 23 kills. Megan Gilbert tallied 18 kills on .293 hitting and libero Anna Church pulled in a match-high 25 digs. Mizzou coughed up a 16-9 lead in set one, allowing SLU to escape with a 27-25 set win. Mizzou then rebounded to win set two thanks to a .306 attack clip in the frame and 13 kills. Mizzou then came out of the locker room flat in set three and despite a late rally, lost the frame, 25-22.
In set four, Mizzou hit .355 with 14 kills on just 31 attempts to earn a 25-19 set win. But SLU scored the first two points of set five and opened up a late lead thanks to several key Tiger hitting errors down the stretch. Mizzou got as close as 11-10 in the fifth, but SLU scored four of the last five points to close out the match.
Mizzou will be back in action this weekend at the Idaho Nike Invitational. For all the latest on Mizzou volleyball, stay tuned to MUTigers.com and follow the team on twitter @MizzouVB.