Senior Na Yang
 
Senior Na Yang
  
 
Tigers and No. 18 K-State Meet in Manhattan Wednesday

Mizzou volleyball starts Big 12 with three of four on the road

Sept. 25, 2007

Missouri at
#18 Kansas State
September 26, 2007, 7:00pm
Manhattan, Kan.

Missouri Volleyball
visits Kansas State

Quick Links

Multimedia

Coaches

  • Missouri (7-5, 0-3 Big 12): Wayne Kreklow (Drake ‘80), 317-52 overall (9th year), 50-23 at Mizzou (3rd year), 159-69 at with wife at Mizzou (8th year), 5-9 vs Kansas State
  • Kansas State (11-3, 3-1 Big 12): Suzie Fritz (Florida Atlantic, 1994), 135-65 overall (7th year), 135-65 at Kansas State (7th year), 8-4 vs Missouri

Series Matchup

  • Kansas State has won 21 of the last 26 meetings with the Tigers
  • However, Missouri is 4-0 under Wayne Kreklow against K-State and have swept the season series the past two years. K-State’s last win over the Tigers came with a 3-0 victory in Manhattan in 2004
  • The Tigers are 2-11 all time when Kansas State is ranked … both of those wins came in 2005

Of Note

  • Mizzou has also won five out of 58 times when meeting ranked conference opponents on the road with all of those wins coming between 2003 and 2005.
    • Missouri is 0-6 all-time against teams ranked No. 16
    1. The Tigers are 2-11 all time when Kansas State is ranked … both of those wins came in 2005
    2. Mizzou has lost seven-straight matched on September 26 dating back to 1987.

COLUMBIA, Mo.— The Missouri volleyball team (7-5, 0-3 Big 12) travels to Manhattan, Kan., Wednesday, for a 7 p.m., meeting with the No. 18 nationally-ranked Wildcats of Kansas State (11-3, 3-1 Big 12). Mizzou will play back-to-back top 25 opponents in the week with No. 25 Oklahoma visiting the Hearnes on Saturday. Senior OH Na Yang (Shan Dong, China) has scored 10-or-more kills in all 12 Tiger matches this season and is one kill from Mizzou’s all-time top five in the category.

Yang Close to Milestone
Senior Na Yang has continued to rack kills and is one kill away from Mizzou’s all-time top five in career kills. Na stands at 1,155 in her career, one shy of Nicole Wilson’s 1,156. The jump from fifth to fourth will be the toughest as 320 kills separate Wilson and Christi Myers (’99-’02) for fourth.
 
Saturday Revisited … ‘Missed It By That Much’
Mizzou lost to Iowa State in Ames on Saturday, 30-27, 24-30, 26-30, 30-26, 14-16. The Tigers were led by freshman Weiwen Wang’s 18 kills. S Lei Wang earned the second 20-20 of her career with 30 assists and 24 digs as her role in the 6-2 becomes more apparent.

The Tigers won game one 30-27, and was up as much as five at 13-8. But, an Iowa State 6-2 run gave the Cyclones a 22-20 lead. ISU would go on to lead by as much as three, as late as 25-22, but the Tigers went on a 6-1 run to close the book.

Circumstances in the start of second game were very similar. Mizzou would go up five at 15-10 before another ISU run would put the score again to 22-20 with Iowa State on top, on the way to a 25-20 score as part of an 8-0 Cyclone run. Iowa State didn’t look back to win the second frame 30-24.

Game three was full of runs and ties. A 7-2 run late in the stanza sealed ISU’s 30-26 game win.

After a 4-0 run to make the score 18-16, Mizzou was in control for the rest of game four to grab the 30-26 decision and force a game five.

Mizzou’s fifth, fifth game of the season did not start well. A foot fault on the SIDE of the service area called on Lei Wang gave ISU the first point. An unforced Tiger error and two Cyclone kills made the score 4-0 quick. Mizzou used its final timeout at the 9-2 mark and looked at 14-7 down later. Then, Lei took the serve again and this time rattled six-straight service points to tie the score at 14-14. Iowa State would grab the last two, though, to pull out the match win.

Scouting Kansas State …
Kansas State is coming off a 3-2 victory over border-foes Colorado on Saturday.  The No. 18 Wildcats (11-3, 3-1) earned their first victory in Boulder since 2003 after rallying from a 2-1 deficit.

After winning the first set against the Buffaloes, the Wildcats dropped the next two.  In the fourth set, after trailing early, Kansas State went on a 5-1 run to tie the match at two sets apiece.  In the final set, K-State again rallied after trailing 7-2 to take the match victory over Colorado.

Sophomore MB Kelsey Chipman and junior OH Nataly Korobkova each recorded double-doubles.  Chipman notched a team-high 11 blocks to go along with 16 kills, while Korobkova added ten blocks and 12 kills for the Wildcats.  Chipman also led K-State, along with junior MB Megan Farr (15 kills, eight blocks), with a .394 hitting percentage.

Junior OH Rita Liliom continued to lead the K-State offense, as she led the Wildcats in kills, with 18, for the fifth time this season.  Senior S Stacey Spiegelberg added a season-high 62 assists.

Farr has been a standout on both sides of the ball this year for the Wildcats, especially in Big 12 play.  She leads the team with a .452 hitting percentage in conference, and is third on the team in kills and kills per game.  She is also second on the team in blocks (25) and blocks per game (1.56).

Kansas State has won 21 of the last 26 meetings with the Tigers.  However, Missouri is 4-0 under Wayne Kreklow against K-State and have swept the season series the past two years.  K-State’s last win over the Tigers came with a 3-0 victory in Manhattan in 2004.  The Wildcats are currently tied for third place in the Big 12 Conference, somewhere they have not been since 2003, when they won the conference after going 18-2 in Big 12 play.

-- Blair Miller

  • Missouri is 0-6 all-time against teams ranked No. 16
  • Mizzou has also won five out of 58 times when meeting ranked conference opponents on the road with all of those wins coming between 2003 and 2005.
  • The Tigers are 2-11 all time when Kansas State is ranked … both of those wins came in 2005
  • Mizzou has lost seven-straight matched on September 26 dating back to 1987.

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

  • Along with her top five pursuit in career kills, Yang is also ninth all-time in points with 1,303.5, 25 away from taking eighth from Renee Rosinski.
  • Senior Tatum Ailes already holds the Mizzou all-time record in digs with 1,648, 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 third all-time with 0.8897 blocks per game and is just a smaller fraction from Krista Johnson, who now is fourth on the list (0.8892) … in the last five matches, Hantouli has scored 1.05 bpg.

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 Iowa State’s 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.

Big 12 Report
Missouri continued its struggles and fell to 0-3 in Big 12 play for the first time since 1998, two seasons before the current coaching staff arrived at the school.  The Tigers fell to Iowa State and Kansas, both in five games.  Iowa State, meanwhile, improved to 3-1 in Big 12 play, defeating Missouri and losing to Texas.  Kansas, on the other hand, even its record at 2-2 in conference play after two wins last week (Missouri and Texas Tech).  Missouri travels to Kansas State and hosts Oklahoma this week.  Iowa State is off on Wednesday before taking on the Red Raiders of Texas Tech, and Kansas hosts No. 1 Nebraska. 

Baylor picked up its first victory when they defeated Colorado in five games.  However, they couldn’t follow up that victory with another one, as they dropped a 3-1 decision to Oklahoma at home.  The Bears host Texas A&M, before heading to Lincoln to face the Huskers.

Colorado joins Missouri as the only teams that have not won a match in Big 12 play this year.  After losing to Baylor, the Buffs dropped a 3-2 heartbreaker to No. 18 Kansas State.  Colorado goes on the road for a two game road trip as they face Oklahoma in Norman and Texas in Austin on Wednesday and Friday, respectively. 

After losing its first Big 12 match to Oklahoma, No. 18 Kansas State rebounded with a nice 3-2 victory over Colorado.  After hosting Missouri, the Wildcats travel to College Station to take on Texas A&M.

No. 1 Nebraska kept rolling along with a 3-0 victory over Texas A&M last week.  That is the Huskers’ eighth three game sweep win of the year.  In fact, Nebraska has only lost one game in all its matches, dropping one to UCLA, in their second match of the year. 

After winning its only match of the short week, No. 7 Texas travels to Texas Tech before hosting Colorado.  The Longhorns continue to play without star sophomore Ashley Engle, who is still sidelined. 

After splitting against Texas Tech (win) and Nebraska (loss) last week, Texas A&M looks to rebound against Baylor and Kansas State.  After winning their first ten matches, the Aggies have struggled, losing three of their last four, all in conference play. 

-- Mike Wojtychiw

National Report
Only two upsets?!:  There was only one upset in the past week, as Colorado State, a team receiving votes, defeated No. 23 BYU.  The other upset was then-No. 23 Ohio State dropping a 3-2 decision to Northwestern, who improved their record to 10-2, before losing to Penn State.

Not a whole lot of moving:  Only one team dropped out of the Top 25, Ohio State, which allowed Oklahoma to sneak into the poll at No. 2, after its win against then No. 16 Kansas State.  The top 15 stayed the same, with California and Michigan switching spots to No. 10 and 11, respectively.  BYU made the biggest drop, falling from No. 17 to No. 23.  No teams made any significant movement up the rankings. 

Tripling it up:  Senior Setter Leanne Felsing of UW-Milwaukee eight triple doubles in her team’s 14 matches.  In those eight matches she is averaging 15.38 kills, 28.5 assists, and 15 digs per triple double match.  The Panthers (13-1), who run a 6-2 offense, are are undefeated when Felsing gets a triple double. 

-- Mike Wojtychiw

Notes to Keep in Mind … 2006 Revisited

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

###


 

 

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.