The Mizzou volleyball team earned its first ever win against a top-five opponent as it beat second-ranked Florida, 3-1 (25-23, 25-23, 23-25, 25-18), on Sunday afternoon (Oct. 20) in front of a season-high 4,202 fans at the Hearnes Center.
The win improves the Tigers to 23-0 and 7-0 in SEC play as they are alone atop the SEC standings place as the league’s only unbeaten team in conference play. Mizzou joins Colorado State as the only teams in the nation to not lose a match this season. The Tigers handed the Gators their second loss of the season and first SEC loss while snapping a 13-match SEC winning streak by the Gators.
“Obviously this is a huge win for us and I thought we played about as well as we could have played,” head coach Wayne Kreklow said. “That Florida team has a very legitimate shot at winning a national championship this year, but our kids came out focused and ready to go. We served very tough and we just had a lot of people pitch in in a lot of different areas and Florida made some critical errors at key points of the match. That was a very high-level volleyball match and I couldn’t be happier for our kids.”
Junior outside hitter Emily Wilson led the team with 14 kills on .351 hitting to lead the offensive charge. Freshman Carly Kan added 13 kills on .379 hitting with 12 digs, good for her third double-double of the season and third in four matches. Junior All-SEC middle Whitney Little added eight kills and four total blocks while freshman Emily Thater added five kills on .444 hitting with a team-high five total blocks.
The 4,202 fans that took in the match on Sunday are the fifth-largest crowd in program history and the most at Hearnes Center since 2006. Mizzou returns to the road next weekend at LSU and Texas A&M.
