The University of Mississippi Athletics
Rebels Knock Off Defending SEC Champs
10/1/2014 | Athletics, Blog
Playing in front of a nationally-televised audience on the SEC Network, the Ole Miss volleyball team notched their biggest win of the season, knocking off defending SEC Champion Missouri in three sets. The win also snaps the Tigers' 20-match SEC win streak dating back to Nov. 23, 2012.
"It's huge," said junior Nakeyta Clair who led the team with 14 kills and a .500 hitting percentage. "It shows not only us, but it shows our fans that we can do it this year. We have a lot of confidence in ourselves this year. It didn't faze us they were SEC champs last year."
The Rebels hit a game-best .324 to win the first set 25-18 but fell behind 22-16 in the second set. Coming out of a timeout, Ole Miss finished the set on a 9-1 run to take a 2-0 lead into halftime. The Rebels forced seven attack errors during the rally including two blocks from freshman Taylor Alexander, who finished with a career-high eight blocks.
"She had a lot of big kills, even though there weren't many," said head coach Steven McRoberts of Alexander. "She had them at some really clutch times for us and then she had some huge blocks for us. She had eight blocks on the evening. She created a lot momentum changes for us with the blocks."
Ole Miss fell behind again in the third set, trailing by as many as four points, before finding another answer, rallying to tie the set at 20-20. The Rebels went ahead for good on a kill from sophomore Melanie Crow at 21-21 and then they clinched the match on another attack error from Missouri.
Errors, where Ole Miss had 16 to Missouri's 22, and blocks, where Ole Miss had 18 to Missouri's 12, were two areas you could point to on the stat sheet, but the difference in the match compared to the first weekend of SEC play, McRoberts said, was energy and aggressiveness.
"We kept our aggressiveness," McRoberts said. "Against South Carolina, as the match went on, our confidence starting going down, and you saw hitters tipping a lot and our passing was getting worse and we were becoming more tentative. As for tonight, we had our moments where we did that, but it wasn't for long stretches."
With the win, Ole Miss improves to 15-2 overall, 1-2 in SEC play, ahead of a one-week break before the Rebels return to action on the road at Arkansas.
"We knew it was going to be a tough match," McRoberts said. "Any time we can win in the SEC, it's big for our program. Of course going into a week break, it's a huge. We have a week to prepare for Arkansas."
