Mizzou Soccer, Volleyball Win Over the Weekend


By: Dan Blanchard
COLUMBIA, Mo.- The Missouri soccer team (5-3-4) won a 2-1 decision against Ole Miss (8-2-3) Friday night at Walton Stadium.
After going behind early on a long-range goal from Ole Miss forward CeCe Kizer within the opening five minutes of the game, the Tigers produced answers from Jessica Hermann and Lauren Flynn. Hermann’s goal came as a turning point in the game as Ole Miss controlled the run of play for the first half-hour of the game. The Tigers slowly regained composure, and were rewarded with the Hermann goal off a Macee Blanchard corner kick to bring a 1-1 tie into the locker room at the half.
In the second half, the Tigers picked up where they left off and found chance after chance until Lauren Flynn was able to slot home on a pretty passing play that found her in alone on goal. It was an unfortunate result for Ole Miss goalkeeper Marnie Merritt who played excellent all game and wound up with 8 saves for the game.
One noticeable area of improvement for the Tigers was on set-piece plays. All game long the Tigers played excellent balls into high scoring areas and were able to convert on one of them to tie the game in the first half. Also noticeable in this game was the Tiger defense’s willingness to move forward and get involved with the offensive attack.  Both of these key developments allowed the Tigers to maintain their pressure on Ole Miss for the duration of the second half. In the final seconds of the game, Ole Miss had a free kick on the edge of the 18-yard box which produced a brilliant save from Mizzou reserve goalie Kristen Rivers to preserve the win for Mizzou.
Next up for the Tigers is an away conference game against the LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge, La. on Friday, Oct. 9.
A Sunday afternoon matinee match against the University of Tennessee Volunteers saw the Mizzou Tigers volleyball team emerge victorious in their second SEC matchup of the season. The Tigers (17-1, 2-0) were able to defeat the Vols in four sets and continue the momentum they picked up after last week’s thrilling come-from-behind victory over #9 Florida.
The Tigers were led once again by Carly Kan, who has been nothing short of amazing for Mizzou this year. She finished with 16 kills, 10 digs, and 2 blocks to go along with a key kill in the fourth set the put the Tigers up for good. Tennessee looked overmatched for large portions during the match, but were able to put a nice streak together at the end of the second set and wound up taking it from the Tigers 25-20. Each of the other three sets went in Mizzou’s favor by a score of 25-17.  Regan Peltier and Julia Towler had monster games for Mizzou and their net-front presence wrecked havoc on the Vols all afternoon.
There was a scary moment in the third set when Tennessee’s Kanisha Jimenez ran after a ball in desperation directly towards the courtside media table. She crashed hard into the television set up and stayed down on the floor for a couple of minutes before being able to walk off the court under her own power. She was later able to return to the game for the Volunteers.
Despite the second set blemish, the Tigers controlled the contest from start to finish. They will look to build on their momentum to start conference play and look to maintain their perfect SEC record when they take on Mississippi State this Friday in Starkville, Miss.

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