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The Oklahoma Sooner Volleyball Team, playing well as of late, faces a hot Missouri Tigers team. The Tigers have won four straight EC matches after opening the SEC play at 1-2. The Tigers 5-2 record places them in a tie for 2nd in the SEC. Oklahoma is in a tie for 10th with their 3-5 record.

The Tiges have a diverse attack looking a their stats. They have an OH on the left with over 300 points (#19 Vernon 5'11") and Right Side hitter with with over 320 points (#4 Iliff 6'2") and a MB with over 130 points (#1 Finney 6'1"). A fourth scorer is an OH with over 200 points (#12 deMarriais 6'2"). Their second MB also has over a 100 points (#11 Haith 6'2").

Missouri also serves well with over 132 aces this season led by Iliff with 50 Aces vs 46 service errors. That is impressive. On defene the Tigers have 4 players with over 100 Digs (#3 Sands has 307 digs) and 104 block points as a team. Haith and Finney lead the blockers at the net.

Crownover #22 is the Setter for Missouri with 550 assists.

I think the deverse offense of the Tigers could make net play for the Sooners more difficult today and partially minimizing the points the Sooners usually build up at the net on blocks. I think this could be a key in the match. I also think the Sooners will have to receive serves well as the Tigers look like a tough serving team. Iliff looks like a very good player for Missouri and OU needs to know where she is at all times and must handle her serves, specifically, well.

For OU, it is more of what has helped them to a 2-1 record over their last 3 matches. Less of the errors at the net and the service line. More of the diverse offense themselves is helpfull as feeding Martin and Geissberger more helps the percentages. If Shelton and Gibson are on, the Sooners can be a very strong team. Pfiffner has played well in relief of Burgess also. Those five are key today at the net. Holding their own is required and perhaps winning at about a 10-15% margin will be helpful.

Chamberlain has been setting very well lately as she spreads the offense across the net. Kemohah needs to have a good day receiving today at the Libero against the Missouri attack as she pulls the defense together. The defensive rotation of J. Ellison, Thompson and Irelad need to play solid volleyball and handle their receptions.

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the match with Missouri today.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/10/2 ... -afternoon

The match today is a key match for the Sooners going into the second half of the SEC schedule. Going into their last 8 matches with a win can propell the Sooners into their second half of the SEC play. A win on sunday can really help propell them into their lone match next weekend against Texas in Austin on Sunday.

Good luck in every way to the Sooner Volleyballers today against Missouri. There have been good crowds at McCasland this season for the Sooners. I hope the crowd can be a diffenerce today also. The match is also on SECN+ / ESPN+ today.

Boomer Sooner!

The Oklahoma Sooners Volleyball Team came out of the locker room ready to play on Sunday afternoon as they started qucikly and won the 1st set 25-19. The sooners benefited form a service run by Sydney Thompson to take a 7-1 lead in the set and outlasted the Tigers to win the first set. The Sooners played well in the first set and had McCasland rocking with enthusiaum from the 1200+ crowd inside the Field House.

In the 2nd and 3rd sets, the Missouri Tigers rebounded to play very well in the middle of the sets to take command and win the 2nd set 25-18 and the 3rd set 25-13. Missouri owned all of the momentum at that point in the match.

With Missouri leading 23-19 and the Sooners were on the brink of a defeat, the Sooners rallied to tie the score at 23-23 with Sydney Thompson serving again. After the two teams won points, the score was tied again at 24-24. OU won the next point on a error by the Tigers to set up Set Point. Kari Geissberger ended the set with a soft kill for the 26-24 win of the 4th set.

The Sooners worked themselves to a 9-6 lead in the decisive 5th set. Missouri evened the set at 9-9 with a little run. Then the score was tied at 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17. With Oklahoma serving, Missouri got a kill by Vernon and then a service ace to win the 5th set and the match 3 sets to 2 sets.

I will say that, mostly because the three young women behind me, that I have never heard McCasland so loud. In the 4th and 5th set the Field Hose was loud and the crowd was into every point.

Walking out, I thought the Sooners would not have very good stats aganst Missouri with regards to errors. But this morning I found that to be wrong. The error totals were atually just one point apart with OU having 41 and Missouri with 42 in a +1 advantage for Oklahoma. I guess the not-so-good play bu the Sooners in the 2nd and 3rd sets skewed my viewpoint of the match. But I also found that Missouri earned 13 more points than the Sooners. Considering that Missouri won the 2nd and 23rd sets by a total of 19 points, and advantage for Missouri makes some sense. It was a close match, and it did go the full five sets with overtime in the 4th and 5th sets.

In the end, OU did battle back from a 2-1 set deficit and came within a point of winning a couple times.

Alexis Shelton lead all scorers with 27.5 points on 23 kills, 2 service errors and 2.5 block points. Jordan Iliff, for Missouri was right behind Shelton with 26.0 points on 23 kills, 1 service ace and 2.0 block points. Iliff got strong help from Mychael Vernon with 21.0 points on 17 kills, 3 service aces and 1 block points to give Missouri a strong 2 person attack. For OU Lydia Martin added 13.5 points on 10 kills and 3.5 block points. Martin had 10 kills on 16 attempts with only 1 error at the net. Martin was 5th in attempts for the Sooners. I wish she would have gotten more sets in the match with her success.

For the match, OU had 57 kills with a 38.3% on kills and 19.5% on hitting%. Missouri had 71 kills with a 44.9% on kills and a 27.8% on hitting%. Missouri won the offensive battle. Oklahoma won the battle of blocks but only by and advantage of 3.0 block points, 10.0 to 7.0. Missouri had 6 service aces with 10 errors while OU had 4 service aces with 5 errors.

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the loss to Missouri.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/10/2 ... -to-mizzou

The Sooners drop to a 3-6 record in SEC play and a 9-8 record overall and they are now in 14th place in the SEC. Missouri is 6-2 in SEC play and 15-5 overall and is in a tie for 2nd place with Kentucky and trailing Texas.

The Sooners travel to Austin next Sunday to play Texas in their only match of the week. The Sooners will be on the road the next week at Ole Miss and Mississippi State.

The Sooners will be home again on November 13th against Texas A&M on a Wednesday night match at 7:00 PM.

Boomer Sooner!