In its return to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament, Missouri failed to overcome late against a talented Kentucky team, losing 3-1 in sets and having its remarkable season closed.
Before the matchup, Missouri and Kentucky met twice during the regular season, once at Memorial Coliseum in Lexington and the other at the Hearnes Center in Columbia. The Wildcats claimed victory in both affairs, scoring a straight-sets win at home, and a competitive four-set triumph on the road.
Despite the one-sided results, many believed the third meeting between the SEC powerhouses to be a razor-thin contest, with Missouri playing more notable volleyball in the opening rounds of the NCAA Tournament. Victories against a scrappy Texas State and No. 2 seeded SMU spurned many to think Missouri’s chances were high. Still, Kentucky proved to be better, another reminder of why they had won the SEC regular season conference title for the eighth consecutive time.
In the first set, Missouri held the lead early but seemed limited on offense due to the absence of consistent starter Regan Haith. With an undisclosed injury, Haith was replaced by senior Morgan Isenberg, who hadn’t seen major action since a September meeting against Illinois. Regardless, the Tigers managed to hold the lead until the midway point, when Kentucky broke through with multiple scoring runs thanks to well-timed tips that caught Missouri’s front-line block off guard. The Wildcats finished the first set strong, blocking any attempt by the Tigers to shift the tide in the set’s waning moments, and went on to win 25-20.
The second set mirrored the first, with the only difference being how the Wildcats started. Another of Megan Wilson’s kills put Kentucky in the driver’s seat, forcing the Tigers to play from behind for much of the set, and giving way to error-prone play that had been a sticking point in Missouri’s season. Heroics by All-SEC First Team member Jordan Iliff kept the Tigers in range, but the overwhelming pressure of Kentucky soon pushed the Tigers down by as many as eight points. A late run by Missouri saw Isenberg finally in the mix with scoring plays, but with a wide margin of error at its disposal, Kentucky coasted to a similar 25-20 victory.
Missouri found life in the third set, now down 2-0 and with tournament elimination looming. After a tentative start, the Tigers rattled off a 10-point scoring run, highlighted by service aces from Perez Catala and masterful play from Vernon. Any chance of a Kentucky response was quickly snuffed by Iliff, as the senior put away the Wildcats with two clinical kills to win the third set 25-16.
The match had new intrigue, with the Tigers showing out in the third. Despite that, any thought of an upset was quickly squashed, as the Wildcats managed to outwork Missouri yet again. Playing arguably its best volleyball of the tournament, Kentucky leaned on its stars to get the job done. That coupled with Missouri’s most error-prone play of the match and the result was a foregone conclusion. For every point Missouri earned Kentucky responded with three or more, and even Iliff couldn’t erase the major deficit as the Wildcats went on to win the fourth set 25-13.
Missouri’s second year with Dawn Sullivan at the helm proved to be better than the first. The 22-9 record was the Tiger’s best since the 2019 season, and the Sweet 16 appearance was their deepest run in the NCAA tournament since 2017. Add to that highlight wins over Texas and SMU, and the No. 19 rank in the AVCA, and one begins to wonder where Sullivan can take Missouri in her third season as head coach.
Only time will tell if Missouri continues to improve from this remarkable season. The Tigers will lose much of their offensive talent and rotation players due to ending eligibility. Still, Sullivan will have a foundation to start with, if the likes of Marina Crownover, Maya Sands, Janet deMarrais, and others decide to stay amidst a growing culture of transfer portal movement at the collegiate level.
Regardless, in a short window Missouri volleyball has become a team to watch, and if that two-year trend is anything to go by, there is no limit to what the Tigers can accomplish in the seasons to come.