The creation of the World Wide Web, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the Ronald Reagan administration had all occurred more recently than the last time Vanderbilt had a volleyball program. Forty-five years. That’s how long it’s been since Vanderbilt has had a D1 volleyball program before this season.
The Commodores’ season had gone just about as one would expect for a program coming out of a 45-year hiatus. Going into the game against Missouri, they had a record of 5-15 with a conference record of 1-10. They had also lost seven straight matches while Missouri was riding a seven-game winning streak, including a most recent road win over #16 Tennessee less than 48 hours prior. Based on everything available, Missouri entered Memorial Gymnasium in Nashville as large road favorites and were expected to grow that seven-game win streak to eight.
But volleyball matches aren’t played on paper; they’re played on a court. And on Saturday afternoon, the Commodores pulled off the shocker and knocked off the Tigers in five sets.
Missouri didn’t just get upset by a Vanderbilt team that only had one SEC win heading into the game; they got outmatched. Vanderbilt entered the afternoon 13th in the SEC in hitting % while allowing their opponents to hit at a 0.252%. Missouri ended up hitting 0.210 as a team while Vanderbilt hit 0.301, their highest in SEC play this year.
The first set was a see-saw match until Vanderbilt took a 20-16 lead, which ended up being enough to keep Missouri away and take set 1 26-24. Set 2 was much different. Vanderbilt roared out to a 10-2 lead, and that was basically all she wrote for set 2 as Vanderbilt sent Missouri soul-searching after taking it 25-13. Missouri hit 0.118 in set 2, which wasn’t even their lowest in a set during the match. That lowest came in set 3, where the Tigers stayed alive, winning it 25-23 while hitting 0.057. A strong set 4 25-21 victory for Missouri, where they hit 0.316 and had a match high 4 blocks in a set allowed them to force set 5 to try and prevent the upset. That obviously did not happen, and Vanderbilt took set 5 16-14.
Jacquelyn Moore led the way for the Commodores with 23 kills with a 0.528 hit%. She also added five blocks defensively. Reese Animashaun followed closely behind with 16 kills, while Kayla Dunlap tallied nine of the Commodores’ 14 blocks.
On the Missouri side, Janet deMarrais was the only Tiger with double-digit kills with 13 despite hitting 0.171. Asia Harvey and Tyrah Arial came close with nine kills. Ariail was efficient, hitting 0.320 while also adding five of Missouri’s 10 team blocks.
Missouri will look to get back on track at home on Thursday night against Kentucky.
