Mizzou volleyball senior setter Molly Kreklow (Delano, Minn.) has been named SEC Player of the Week, as announced by the league office on Monday (Sept. 9). Kreklow was named Yale Invitational MVP last weekend and has helped the Tigers to an 8-0 start, their best record to open a season since 2005. She also has the Tigers ranked first in the SEC in kills per set, hitting and assists per set. The weekly award for Kreklow is her first SEC Player of the Week honor and the first conference weekly nod since taking home Big 12 Player of the Week on Aug. 29, 2011.
“I think this award is honestly more of a reflection of how our team has done to this point,” Kreklow said. “In order for a setter to get these awards, you need everyone else to play really well – you need a good first pass and you need hitters that can put the ball away and we have had that so far this season. We are having a lot of fun so far and we are going to look to continue that momentum at Rice this weekend.”
Kreklow was sensational again last weekend in four matches as she helped the team win all four matches, three of which came against defending conference champions and 2012 NCAA Tournament participants, including a key win over defending Ivy League Champion Yale last Friday. Kreklow guided the team to .351 hitting last week and an incredible 14.92 kills per set. She averaged 12.38 assists per set and the team converted 48.2-percent of her sets into kills. She also averaged 2.38 digs per set and hit .375 as an attacker with five aces.
This season, Kreklow has Mizzou hitting an SEC-best .378 with 15.31 assists per set and 14.46 assists per set, both of which are also league-bests. She leads the league in assists per set (12.85) and is second in aces per set (0.62). She has set Mizzou to four of the top seven single match attack clips in the SEC this season and the team has yet to hit lower than .333 in a single match. Her setting has also led to four single-match marks of .390 or better this season, including a Mizzou four-set record .458 over Pittsburgh.
Courtesy: Mizzou Athletics
