Volleyball Hosts No. 25 Missouri, Travels to Alabama

OXFORD, Miss. – For the final time in 2024, the Ole Miss volleyball program will play a match in the Gillom Athletic Performance Center, hosting No. 25 Missouri, before traveling to Tuscaloosa to face Alabama.

The Rebels (16-9, 6-7 SEC) welcome another top-25 opponent in the surging Tigers (18-6, 9-3 SEC) on Friday at 6:30 p.m. CT, before making the short drive east to face the Crimson Tide (11-13, 3-10 SEC) on Sunday at 2 p.m. CT.

RALLY POINTS

Junior outside hitter Nia Washington continues to shine in a breakout campaign, recording a career-high 32 kills against Mississippi State and has now tallied all six of her career 20-kill matches in SEC play this season. The Rebels are 9-4 in matches where she hits .200 or better.
Setter Mokihana Tufono continues her torrid pace in her first season in Oxford, with 938 assists and 10.42 assists per set, which ranks third in the SEC. Tufono is seeking to become the first Rebel with 1,000 assists in a season since Kylee McLaughlin in 2021.
Libero Cammy Niesen now stands at 1,295 career digs, after recording a program record 39 digs in the win over Arkansas. Her total ranks fourth all-time at Ole Miss.
Niesen enters the weekend as the reigning SEC Player of the Week and Defensive Player of the Week. It's her third such defensive honor and the Rebels first SEC Player of the Week since 2021.
The service game has become critical for the Rebels to have success this season, as the team is 15-2 overall when they tally more service aces than their opponent.

SERIES HISTORY

Ole Miss trails by a narrow 14-11 margin to Missouri in the highly competitive all-time series, but has found recent momentum, winning five of the last six meetings.
The two sides split last season's series, as Missouri emerged with a 3-2 win in the opening match, before the Rebels responded to take match two, 3-1. Sasha Ratliff was highly effective across both battles, tallying 15 kills and 13 blocks across the two, while Cammy Niesen tallied 37 combined digs.
While the Rebels trail 47-31 in the all-time ledger to Alabama, the tide has turned in the Rebels favor in recent seasons, as winners of five consecutive and 16 of the last 20 matches.
Last season brought an emphatic 3-0 win for the Rebels, with Vivian Miller tallying 13 kills on a .385 hitting percentage to lead the offense.

LAST TIME OUT
The Rebels got a historic performance from Nia Washington and punctuated a key victory on senior day, defeating Mississippi State, 3-2 on Sunday afternoon.

Washington recorded a career-high 32 kills, matching the program's rally scoring record originally set by Emily Stroup in 2018 and was just one shy of the all-era record of 33. Mokihana Tufono also shined, setting a new career-high with 56 assists to help the Rebels win a critical SEC rematch with just three games to play. As a unit, the Rebels hit .308, good for their highest percentage against Mississippi State since 2018 (.336).

TAKING SECOND CHANCES
Under head coach Bre Henry, the Rebels have been effective at taking lessons from teams they face twice in the same season.

Henry and the Rebels have improved their result each of the last six occasions and flipped the opening result from a loss to a win in game two each of the last five matches, against Missouri (2023), Mississippi State (2023), Northern Colorado (2024), Arkansas (2024) and Mississippi State (2024).

RISING STAR
Nia Washington is in the midst of a breakout junior season and her play has elevated the Rebels to new heights, as they've surged past last season's win total by early October.

Washington has become a lethal hitter in recent weeks, averaging 4.51 kills per set in conference play, compared to her 3.84 kills per set average this season. The New Orleans native has six, 20-kill matches in her last 10 contests, headlined by a 32-kill explosion on November 17 against Mississippi State and has already blown past all of her previous career-highs across numerous categories so far.

Her play has gained her recognition nationally, as she tallied 20 kills in a win against Tennessee and 28 kills in a win against LSU, before being named to NCAA Volleyball's "Rotation of the Week". The Rebels are now 9-4 in matches where she hits over .200.

SERVE IT UP
Under head coach Bre Henry, the Rebels are priding themselves on their desire to be a strong service team, with early results showing tremendous improvement.

Shayla Meyer leads the team with a career-high 31 aces so far in 2024, which is tied for fifth in a single season in the rally scoring era. In addition, Nia Washington reached the 20-ace threshold on Oct. 30 and Emma Ammerman also reached the mark on Nov. 8. Four other players have at least 10 or more service aces this season.

The Rebels tie much of their success to the service game and are 15-2 when they record more aces than their opponent so far this season. On the flip side, in all but three matches they have lost, the Rebels have tallied more than 10 service errors. Additionally, they have lost three of the five matches with their highest service error totals.

Those metrics were confirmed further on Oct. 30, when the Rebels held Auburn to zero service aces, which was the first time they have held an SEC opponent to zero aces since November 27, 2021 against Alabama.

FAMILY AFFAIR
Blocking runs in the Ratliff family. In four years, Ole Miss middle blocker Sasha Ratliff has established herself as one of the top blockers in program history, ranking first all-time in the rally scoring era with 484 total blocks, first in block assists with 385 and second in solo blocks with 99. A dominant force at the net, Ratliff has tallied 100-plus blocks in each of her last three seasons and is looking to do it a fourth straight time as she enters her fifth year as a Rebel. Her knack for blocking comes from her father, Theo, who was a shot blocker too. One of basketball's best, he ranks 20th in NBA history with nearly 2,000 blocks in his 16-year career.

CLIMBING THE LADDER
Several Rebels are poised to etch their names in the all-time record books in 2024 across multiple different metrics.

Sasha Ratliff and Payton Brgoch will officially end their careers at No. 1 and No. 2 on the all-time blocks list (post rally scoring). Ratliff (484) has taken the No. 1 spot, while Brgoch sits at No. 2 (440).

Additionally, Ratliff and Brgoch also rank tied for second and fourth respectively on the combined blocks list. Ratliff sits behind Genevieve Shy (1993-96 - 502 blocks) and tied with Julie Link (1983-86 - 484 blocks), who both competed during the sideout scoring era.

Junior libero Cammy Niesen continues to rewrite the record books on the defensive side, breaking the single-match program record for digs with 39 against Arkansas and by rising up the top-10 all-time in the rally scoring era. Niesen stands at 1,295 career digs, which ranks fourth all-time in program history. Niesen needs 83 digs to pass Tara Langley and move into third place.

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Players Mentioned

Emma Ammerman

Payton Brgoch

Shayla Meyer

Vivian Miller

Cammy Niesen

Sasha Ratliff

Mokihana Tufono

Nia Washington

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