Tennessee volleyball dropped its momentum Friday night with a 3-1 (21-25, 25-23, 23-25, 17-25) loss to Missouri after a successful road swing with wins over Alabama and Mississippi State last week. Tennessee couldn’t muster enough offense to snap the Tigers’ now seven-match winning streak.
The No. 16 Lady Vols (16-4, 7-3 SEC) kicked off another brief weekend homestand, which was halted by a Missouri team that has played up to conference competition this season and has gone 15-7 this season and 6-4 in conference play.
The Tigers immediately set the tone with a 25-21 win in the first set, as the efficient offense the Lady Vols had seen last week on the road was nowhere to be found out of the gate. Despite the initial struggles, set-to-set adjustments have been Tennessee’s bread and butter this season.
The Lady Vols hit at just a .125 clip in the first set and made nine attacking errors to open the match, but could not clean up their game as Missouri walked away with the match win.
Missouri could not keep its momentum as the Lady Vols answered right back to force a fourth set, but dropped the third set after tying it at 23 all. A dormant Tennessee offense that hit just .160 on the night is not a recipe that the Lady Vols can continue this season.
The off nights on offense have come back to haunt Tennessee once before, costing it a win over Florida on Oct. 15.
Tennessee’s sluggish start in the first set carried over into the second set, with the Tigers taking a commanding 2-0 lead into the third set.
Missouri made Tennessee work all night, but a big block by Chelsea Sutton swung the momentum for the Lady Vols late in the second set. Tennessee was trailing 19-17 when Sutton came up with the block on Tigers’ outside hitter Caylen Alexander and started a run that got the Lady Vols back in the set.
The momentum was moot, though, as the Tigers used a 10-2 scoring run in the fourth set to put the Lady Vols away for the night.
Despite the Tigers matching Tennessee’s physicality at the net and capitalizing on mistakes that the Lady Vols made early on, Tennessee overcame the early adversity to could not capitalize on its late rallies, falling in four sets.
Starr Williams and Hayden Kubik were the only Lady Vols of note on a night when offense was at a premium. The pair combined for 26 kills for 76 attacks, four blocks and 13 digs. Kubik also picked up an ace from behind the line, one of the Lady Vols’ few serving successes.
Tennessee’s defense picked up the weight Friday night, with four players recording five or more digs in the loss to Missouri, with Sutton and Williams combining for nine blocks in the match as well.
Tennessee will take on No. 9-ranked Texas A&M on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET.
