Frosh Weiwen Wang
 
Frosh Weiwen Wang
  
 
Mizzou Starts Two-Match Road Stretch at Iowa State

Tigers look to avoid 0-3 conference start

Sept. 21, 2007

Missouri at
(RV) Iowa State
September 22, 2007, 6:30pm
Ames, Iowa

Missouri Volleyball
visits Iowa State

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Coaches

  • Missouri (7-4, 0-2 Big 12): Wayne Kreklow (Drake ‘80), 317-51 overall (9th year), 50-22 at Mizzou (3rd year), 159-68 at with wife at Mizzou (8th year), 13-1 vs Iowa State
  • Iowa State (8-5, 2-1 Big 12): Christy Johnson (Nebraska, 1996), 45-31 overall (3rd year), 45-31 at Iowa State (3rd year), 1-3 vs Missouri

Series Matchup

  • Mizzou leads the all-time series, 34-27.
  • Good news, Mizzou has won 19 of the last 20 meetings with Iowa State. Bad news, Iowa State has a one-match winning streak over the Tigers. Yes, Iowa State’s visit to Columbia on November 1, 2006, produced a 3-1 win for the Cyclones.
  • The Tigers have won nine-consecutive in Ames on the Cyclones’ home court dating back to 1996. NOTE: The 1999 meeting between the teams was held in Carroll, Iowa, technically neutral ground.

Of Note

  • The Tigers are 0-2 in Big 12 play for the first time under the Kreklows. The last time Mizzou went 0-3 to start a Big 12 season was in 1998. In 1997, the team started conference play 0-6. In 1996, the team went 0-20 in Big 12 play.

COLUMBIA, Mo.— The Missouri volleyball squad will travel to Ames, Iowa, for a Saturday matchup with the Iowa State Cyclones (8-5, 2-1 Big 12), first serve is at 6:30 p.m. The Tigers (7-4, 0-2 Big 12) are looking to avoid starting the Big 12 schedule 0-3 for the first time since 1998. The Cyclones, fresh off its 2006 bid to the NCAA Tournament and receiving votes in the latest coaches’ poll, have not defeated the Tigers in Ames since 1996.

Wednesday Revisited … Border Showdown Beginnings Leaves Bad Taste
There are probably three ways Mizzou can look at Wednesday’s, 30-23, 26-30, 20-30, 30-28, 15-7 loss to Kansas. Good, bad, and ugly. Kind of cliché, but true.

GOOD:
The play of frosh DS Shayli Meyer (Sioux City, Iowa) was fantastic. Meyer played in all five Tiger games, and helped save the Tigers from sliding farther down the hill in games one and two. Stats for defensive players are always hard to find and they never really justify their play, but Meyer had a career-high seven digs and MOST importantly, she fielded 17 serve receptions clean and led the team with a .414 reception-to-kill ratio, meaning of her 17 receptions, seven led directly to kills.

BAD:
Game one. Head Coach Wayne Kreklow said after the match, “I really thought we had lost the match in the middle of game one. You can’t have a start like that at home and expect for the best to happen.” Kansas had already scored nine points, six off Mizzou unforced attack errors, in the first frame before the Tigers’ first kill.

UGLY:
36 unforced errors. Not a season high (40 at Ole Miss), but not a season highlight either. The Tigers had 12 total hitting errors in game one alone. In addition, in game five, the Tigers only scored four kills on a .000 hitting percentage, as four errors trumped the scores. Mizzou’s attacks to error ratio was 5.39, nearly a season low. But, think about having an error to every five attempts. In stark contrast, Mizzou’s season best in the category is 20.6, against UMKC. Yes, only one error per 20 attempts. Also remember, unforced errors do not count blocks by the other team (which are attack errors, but not unforced errors). Kansas scored on 16 team blocks, a season best for a Tiger opponent.

With the win Kansas broke their 12-match in-conference losing streak. It was also Kansas’ first win in the Hearnes since 2001 and the first against Mizzou in seven tries.

Alright, laundry out, time to move on.

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.

Television For the Cyclones’ Visit to Columbia
The November 14 volleyball match in the Hearnes Center between the Missouri Tigers and the Iowa State Cyclones will be televised on the Mizzou Sports Network. FSN Midwest will air the match live in Mid-Missouri and St. Louis while those in Kansas City can catch live action on MetroSports.

The Wednesday match is slated for a 6:30 p.m., start, and will be the third televised match of the season.

FSN Rocky Mountain will air live coverage of Mizzou’s match at Colorado on October 3 while CSTV will air live coverage of the Tigers’ visit to Nebraska on October 31.

Scouting Iowa State …
The Cyclones (8-5, 2-1 Big 12), won its first two conference matches of the season before being swept against the No. 7 ranked Texas Longhorns on Wednesday.  Iowa State has upended two top 25 ranked opponents this season, sweeping the No. 21 LSU Tigers in the Iowa Collegiate Volleyball Challenge, and defeating the No. 25 Texas A&M Aggies 3-1 last Saturday.

The Cyclones are lead by two seniors, Lauren Cummings and Erin Boeve.  Last season, Cummings, led the Cyclones with a .317 hitting percentage, which ranked tenth in the Big 12.  This season, Cummings averages 3.13 kills per game, and posts a .264 hitting percentage.  In 2006, Boeve earned honors as an AVCA All-American Honorable Mention and was named to the first team all-Big 12 team, the first Cyclone player in history to earn such honors.  This season, Boeve is ranked ninth in the Big 12 in points (4.53/game) and tenth in kills (3.76/game).  Defensively, the Cyclones are led by junior Jen Malcom, a transfer student in her first season with Iowa State.  Malcom is ranked third in the Big 12 with 1.59 blocks per game.

The Cyclones and Tigers met up twice last season, each winning a match on the other’s home court.  Early in the year, the then-No. 17 Tigers rolled into Ames and swept the Cyclones 3-0.  Later in the season, the Cyclones bounced back and took one from the Tigers at the Hearnes Center, upsetting the then-No. 21 Tigers 3-1.  The Tigers have not lost in Ames since 1996.

Last year, the Cyclones pulled off their first 20-win season in 11 years, finishing fourth in the Big 12 with a record of 21-11 (12-8 Big 12).  They earned their first NCAA Tournament bid since 1995, winning their first round game against UW-Milwaukee before being eliminated by No. 10 Wisconsin in the second round.

-- Steve Keers

  1. Mizzou leads the all-time series, 34-27.
  2. Good news, Mizzou has won 19 of the last 20 meetings with Iowa State. Bad news, Iowa State has a one-match winning streak over the Tigers. Yes, Iowa State’s visit to Columbia on November 1, 2006, produced a 3-1 win for the Cyclones.
  3. The Tigers have won nine-consecutive in Ames on the Cyclones’ home court dating back to 1996. NOTE: The 1999 meeting between the teams was held in Carroll, Iowa, technically neutral ground.
  4. The Tigers are 0-2 in Big 12 play for the first time under the Kreklows. The last time Mizzou went 0-3 to start a Big 12 season was in 1998. In 1997, the team started conference play 0-6. In 1996, the team went 0-20 in Big 12 play.

 

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.

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Vann Tries Out For USA National Team

02/26/2009 - W. Volleyball

Last weekend in Colorado Springs, Colorado, junior setter for the Mizzou Tiger volleyball team, Caitlyn Vann, participated in the USA National Team tryouts.

Volleyball Standout Returns To Mizzou

02/17/2009 - W. Volleyball

In a glass case, adjacent to one of the many entrances in the Hearnes Center, hangs a red, white and blue jersey covered in black ink. Mostly silent and surrounded by memories of the past, the name on the jersey speaks loudly than any piece of memorabilia in that case: Hunter.

Tiger Volleyball Inks Three for `09

11/17/2008 - W. Volleyball

Three have signed National Letters of Intent to play volleyball at the University of Missouri next fall: Paola Ampudia, Kate Harris, and Lindsey Petrick.

Mizzou Volleyball Camps Finalized

01/21/2009 - W. Volleyball

Mizzou will once again offer summer camps for high schoolers interested in learning more about the sport of volleyball.

VB's Post-Season Push Brings No. 13 K-State

11/18/2008 - W. Volleyball

The Mizzou volleyball team has won four straight home matches and three of its last four overall, but No. 13 Kansas State comes to the Hearnes Center Wednesday.