COLUMBIA, Mo. - Mizzou volleyball will face Mississippi State on Wednesday at Hearnes Center at 6 p.m. CDT. The game will be televised on SEC Network.
MATCH AT A GLANCE
Game No. 18 • Wednesday, Oct. 14 • 6 p.m.
Mizzou (9-8, 2-3 SEC) vs. Mississippi State (13-3, 3-2 SEC)
LOCATION: Hearnes Center • Columbia, Mo.
SERIES HISTORY: MIZ leads 18-5 • STREAK: W1
LAST GAME: W 3-0 at Newell-Grissom Building (Starkville, Miss. • Nov. 14, 2025)
LIVE STREAM: SEC Network
OPPONENT WEB: hailstate.com/
THE MATCHUP
Mizzou faces Mississippi State on Wednesday at Hearnes Center at 6 p.m. CDT. The game will be televised on SEC Network.
It will also mark MU's "Dig Pink" match this season in support of breast cancer awareness.
SERIES HISTORY
The Tigers are set to face Mississippi State for the 24th time in program history. Missouri is currently 18-5 all-time vs. the Bulldogs and is 11-2 in Columbia.
Mizzou and Mississippi State last faced off on Nov. 14, 2025, in Starkville, with MU earning the 3-0 win. Missouri has won three of its last four matches vs. the Bulldogs dating back to Nov. 3, 2023.
Thirteen of the Black and Gold's 18 wins in this series have been 3-0 sweeps. In comparison, they've only been swept once by the Bulldogs.
LAST TIME OUT
Mizzou won its first five-set match of the season, coming back from down 1-0 and 2-1 to gut out the win vs. Auburn on Sunday afternoon. It marked the Tigers first 3-2 win in a conference game since Nov. 22, 2024, at Ole Miss and their first at home since Oct. 13, 2024, vs. Tennessee.
Sophomore Paige Felder (Parowan, Utah) led Missouri with 19 kills, a career high. She added on four digs and finished with 20.5 points.
Junior Nina Mandovic (Subotica, Serbia) notched 11 digs for the Tigers and 23 assists, her fourth double-double this season. Senior Sierra Dudley (Spartanburg, S.C.) had a double-double of her own with 28 assists and 10 digs, her second time acheiving the feat.
Senior Ainoah Cruz (Arecibo, P.R.) tallied 26 digs for MU and only recorded one error through five sets.
Junior Claire Morrissey (Wildwood, Mo.) led the team in hitting percentage (.615), notching a career-high nine kills for the Tigers on 13 total attempts.
TEAM RANKINGS
Mizzou ranks top-five in the SEC in kills (fourth, 808), digs (fourth, 822) and service aces (fifth, 90).
Missouri's total blocks rank 109th nationally, while its blocks per set mark (2.16) is 121st.
The Tigers' .254 hitting percentage is their best national mark, sitting 52nd in the country.
This has come against a schedule that ranks as the 13th-hardest in the nation to this point and the fourth-hardest in the conference.
Their past opposition has a combined .659 winning percentage while their future opponents have a .675 mark.
S-E-C! S-E-C!
Missouri earned its second conference win on Sunday, improving to 2-3 through five games.
MU has finished .500 or better in each of its three conference slates under head coach Dawn Sullivan, posting a combined 28-21 record in that three-year span and a 30-24 record overall.
Only three other SEC teams have had at least a .500 record in conference play in each of the last three seasons: Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida.
Mizzou’s 15-game SEC slate includes eight matches at Hearnes Center and seven on the road before the SEC Tournament from Nov. 20-24 in Savannah, Georgia.
L.F.G.
This season, the team's motto is LFG, which stands for Love. Family. Grit. The slogan is a big part of the team culture as they use it as their primary source of pride. It has two meanings: the classic LFG motto, which means to fire yourself up, and the other is the three core values the team focuses on.
CRUZ CONTROL
No one in the conference has more total digs than Ainoah Cruz (299).
Cruz ranks second in digers per set, with Ole Miss's Cameron Bradley leading with 4.93 and Cruz sitting at a 4.53 mark.
Cruz's 4.53 digs per set would tie her for seventh all-time in a season in school history.
She has tallied 10+ digs in 16 of Mizzou's 17 contests, achieving a season high of 30 against FGCU.
DIGGER
In addition to Cruz, MU is getting major defensive contributions from Nina Mandovic (93 digs, seven blocks), Page Felder (78 digs, 26 blocks), Sierra Dudley (81 digs, four blocks) and Zoey Matias-Lopez (65 digs).
As a team, the Tigers notched a season-high 72 digs in their Sunday match vs. Auburn, topping their previous best of 71 on Sept. 18 vs. Dayton and Sept. 9 vs. Louisville.
Their last match with more was vs. Mississippi State on Nov. 14, 2025 (77).
THE FRESHMAN SHOW
Three freshmen have already logged at least 50 kills this season, with Eva Smith (Durham, N.C.) leading the way with 70. She also leads the team in blocks (63).
Lydia Stahley (Indianapolis, Ind.) has 62 kills on the year and led the team in its win vs. Vanderbilt, logging a career-high 18 while posting a .464 hit percentage. She also led Mizzou in kills and aces on Sept. 19 against Bowling Green with 11 and four, respectively.
Ceylin Kuyan (Instanbul, Turkey) has 60 kills of her own, posting 2.31 per set, third-best on Missouri.
In total, 249 of MU's 808 kills this season have come from its freshman talent (30.8 percent)
Smith, Stahley and Kuyan, along with Maizy Agnello, Millie Bauer and Piper Batie comprise MU's freshmen class.
DOUBLE TROUBLE
Nina Madovic and Sierra Dudley both notched double-doubles in Sunday's match vs. Auburn, with Mandovic logging 23 assists and 11 digs and Dudley tallying 28 assists and 10 digs.
For Mandovic, it was her fourth double-double this season and first since Sept. 9 vs. Louisville.
Dudley's was her first since Sept. 18 vs. Toledo.
Sophomore Paige Felder has a double-double of her own against Arkansas State with 10 kills and 10 digs.
REACHING MILESTONES
Against Arkansas State, setter Sierra Dudley recorded 36 assists to pass the milestone of 1,500 in her career and is now at 1,706.
Ainoah Cruz also reached a milestone of 1,500 career digs while facing FGCU and is now at 1,683.
HITTING GOALS
The Tigers have five players with a hitting percentage of .250 or better on 50 or more total attacks.
The leader in the clubhouse is Lauren Larkin (St. George, Utah), who sits at a .373 mark. That is the fifth-best mark among qualified players in the SEC.
FIVE SET STANDARDS
MU's win vs. Auburn was its first victory in a five-set match this season, improving to 1-3.
Last season, the Tigers went 2-4 in five-set matches, but are 13-8 under head coach Dawn Sullivan.
As a head coach, Sullivan 32-19 all-time in five-set matches.
In 2023, the Tigers went a perfect 5-0 in five-set matches.
SUPPORT STAFF
In March, Coach Sullivan announced the hiring of Lauren Cost as an assistant coach.
The former Big 12 Player of the Year and All-American from Kansas State played her collegiate career at Sullivan's alma mater, K-State, from 2000-04.
Cost remains among the top performers in K-State volleyball history, ranking in the top 10 in career kills (1,212), career hitting percentage (.354) and career block assists (380).
In recognition of her outstanding career, she was inducted into the Kansas State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2013 and the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2019.
In July, Sullivan additionally hired Atanas Petrov as assistant coach.
Petrov served as head coach of the U19 Bulgarian women's national team, leading them to a World Championship and was named the best coach in Bulgaria for 2025. He was previously named the best coach of the National Sport Association of Bulgaria back in 2005.
Before joining the Tigers, Petrov was head coach of the Volley Schönenwerd Men's Volleyball Club (Switzerland). The club-level veteran has coached numerous clubs in Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. Over that course, he is a seven-time club champion, five-time national cup winner and two-time super cup winner.
As a player, he was an outside hitter on the junior national team in Bulgaria, and he played for a variety of top Bulgarian clubs.
NEW PASSPORT
During the 2025 season, associate head coach Wendel Camargo passed his citizenship test and became a U.S. Citizen.
Camargo is originally from Brazil and has coached across the globe, as his first coaching job was with the Dominican Republic National Team.
Six different nations are represented on the Tigers this season: Serbia, Turkey, Argentina, Bulgaria, Brazil and America.
TRANSFERS TO TIGERS
The Black and Gold welcomes two transfers in Cruz (Evansville) and Larkin (Utah State).
EYE ON THE TIGER
This season, the Tigers are set to have three games on SEC Network, one on ESPN2, one on ESPNU and one on FOX.
ABOUT THE TIGERS
The 2026 campaign is the fourth year for head coach Dawn Sullivan. In 2024, Sullivan led the Tigers to their fifth NCAA Sweet Sixteen in program history and earned AVCA Central Region Coach of the Year.
Last season, Sullivan led Missouri to a record of 17-11, including an 8-7 record in SEC play.
During the year, the Tigers secured their highest-ranked conference victory against No. 16 Tennessee, winning 3-1.
During the 2026 campaign, the Tigers will face eight top-25 teams ranked in the 2026 AVCA Preseason Poll, including five top-10 squads.
10 Tigers return to the team after the 2025 season.
INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCE
Ahead of the 2026 season, the Tigers added two international products in Cruz (Arecibo, Puerto Rico) and Kuyan (Istanbul, Turkey). They now have four players on the roster from other countries: Maca Lobaglio (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and Mandovic (Subotica, Serbia).