Volleyball Hosts South Carolina Sunday in SEC Home Opener

COLUMBIA, Mo. – The University of Missouri volleyball team (8-4, 0-1 SEC) will welcome South Carolina (6-3, 0-0 SEC) to the Hearnes Center Sunday for the Tigers 2023 Southeastern Conference Home Opener. First serve is set for 3 p.m., CT.

The match will be televised on SEC Network+ with Casey Roehl and Riley Rohler on the call.

With one more win, Mizzou will tie its win total from the 2022 season.

PROMOTIONS

• Sunday is a Gold Rush and fans are encouraged to wear gold.
• Fans in attendance will receive Gold T-shirts, while supplies last.
• Following the match, fans can stick around for post-match autographs from the Mizzou Volleyball Team.

SERIES HISTORY

• Missouri leads the all-time series with South Carolina, 9-8.
• Despite holding a slight edge in the series, Mizzou has lost each of the last five meetings in the battles of the two schools in Columbia.
• The two teams last met Oct. 1-2, 2022, with South Carolina sweeping the two matches (3-2 and 3-0) in Columbia, South Carolina.
• Missouri last beat the Gamecocks, 3-0, on Feb. 26, 2021, to open the two-match set in Columbia, South Carolina.

TENNESSEE RECAP

• Missouri dropped its conference opener at Tennessee on Wednesday evening in Knoxville.
• Janet deMarrais paced Mizzou with 10 kills and two blocks along with a career-best four digs and an ace (career high). It marked her third career double-digit kill match and second straight.
• Dilara Gedikoglu (four digs) and Jordan Iliff (two digs) each added five kills.  
• Freshman Sierra Dudley tallied 19 assists with a dig.
• Sarah White and Luisa Melloni added six and four assists (Division I career high), respectively.
• Libero Maya Sands grabbed 10 digs with a pair of aces.

IT’S JO TIME

• Jordan Iliff registered 18 kills (2.57 kills/set) and 16 digs (2.29 digs/set) as Missouri went 1-1 at Eastern Illinois (Sept. 14-15) to wrap up non-conference play.
• Iliff tallied her first career double-double of 10 kills and a career-best 13 digs with five blocks in the series finale with EIU on Sept. 15.
• She led the Missouri attack in the opener with EIU on Sept. 14, with eight kills to go with three digs, two blocks and an ace.
• The St. Louis native leads Mizzou this season with 136 kills (3.16 kills/set, 14th in the SEC).
• Iliff has registered eight matches with 10 plus kills thus far, including a career-best 19 in the 2023 opener against Illinois State (Aug. 25).
• She logged double-digit kills in five consecutive matches to start the campaign, from Aug. 25 through Sept. 2.

OUR LIBERO

• Maya Sands led Missouri defensively with 37 digs (5.29 digs/set) to go with six assists and an ace as Missouri went 1-1 at Eastern Illinois (Sept. 14-15) to wrap up non-conference play.
• She grabbed a career-best 25 digs to go along with two assists in the series finale on Sept. 15. It marked her fourth 20-plus dig outing of the 2023 season.
• Sands opened the week with 12 digs, four assists and an ace in the opener with EIU on Sept. 14.
• Additionally, Sands leads Mizzou and the SEC with 195 digs (4.43 digs/set, third in the SEC) in 2023, including seven matches with 15 or more digs.
• Sands opened her time as a Tiger strong, logging 60 digs over the course of Mizzou’s first three matches of the season on Aug. 25-27.
• The libero also paces the Tigers at the service line (21 aces, second in the SEC, 0.48 ace/set, fifth in the SEC), as she has tallied three aces four times this season.

FRESHMAN SETTER

• Sierra Dudley totaled 63 assists (9.00 assists/set) with 16 digs (2.29 digs/set) as Missouri went 1-1 at Eastern Illinois (Sept. 14-15) to wrap up non-conference play.
• She passed out 48 assists with nine digs, three blocks and two kills as Mizzou hit .260 as a team in the series finale on Sept. 15. For Dudley, it marked her fifth career 40-plus assist match.
• She tallied 15 assists, seven digs and a block in the opener on Sept. 14.
• Dudley’s time as a Tiger got off to an impressive start after the setter registered a career-best 52 assists in Missouri’s third match of the season against Colgate (Aug 27). Dudley combined for 146 assists over the course of Missouri’s season-opening tournament (Aug. 25-27).
• The freshman from Spartanburg, South Carolina, has proved to be an offensive threat as well, tallying three or more kills in seven matches this season. She recorded a career-best five kills in the Tigers’ matchup against Xavier on Sept. 9.
• In addition to distributing the ball, Dudley has also been impressive defensively. She has logged nine matches with five or more digs, including securing double-digit digs for a trio of double-doubles in the season’s first three matches (Aug. 25-27).
• Dudley has produced double-digit assists in every match this season.
• She ranks fourth in the SEC with 389 assists (9.26 assists/set, 10th in the SEC) this season.

MO MAKING MOVES

• Morgan Isenberg tallied 14 kills on a .375 hitting percentage with 13 blocks over the Eastern Illinois series Sept. 14-15.
• She tallied 10 kills to go along with eight blocks in the series finale on Sept. 15.
• The junior has recorded seven matches with five or more kills out of the middle for Mizzou including double-digits three times.
• Isenberg compiled a career-best 16 kills on a .444 hitting clip against Xavier on Sept. 9. 
• At the net, she has tallied five or more blocks, five times in 2023 including a career-high nine blocks against South Dakota (Sept. 2).
• The Wildwood, Missouri, native, ranks second in the SEC this season with 52 blocks (1.21 blocks/set, seventh in the SEC).

GEDIKOGLU, MORE THAN JUST A FUN NAME TO SAY

• Dilara Gedikoglu leads Mizzou in 2023 with four double-doubles. She has finished in double-digits attacking six times.
• The Alanya, Turkey, native, compiled a season-best 20 kills to go with 13 digs in her third match as a Tiger (Aug. 27 vs. Colgate).
• Gedikoglu has also finished with 14 kills three times including the series finale with Eastern Illinois (Sept. 15) to go with a season-best 15 digs on a .297 clip.
• She ranks second on Mizzou with 115 kills (2.67 kills/set) and 99 digs (2.3 digs/set) this season. The outside hitter has posted four double-digit dig matches in 2023.

NON-CONFERENCE RECAP

• Mizzou fashioned a 9-3 mark in non-conference matches this season.
• The Tigers opened the 2023 season with five straight victories over Missouri’s pair of home tournaments (Mizzou Classic and Tiger Invitational) Aug. 25-27 and Sept. 1-3. In that span, Missouri pulled off a pair of five-set wins including a reverse sweep of Central Arkansas (Aug. 26) along with two 3-0 wins.
• Missouri fell to then #3-ranked Louisville at home on Sept. 3.
• The Tigers wrapped non-conference action on the road, going 2-1 in Cincinnati at the Xavier Tournament and 1-1 in a road series with Eastern Illinois.

ABOUT THE TIGERS

• Head coach Dawn Sullivan enters her first season at the helm of the program in 2023.
• Sullivan amassed a 109-38 (.741) mark over five seasons at UNLV, leading the Rebels to five-straight postseason appearances and a pair of Mountain West Championships.
• Sullivan has added seven transfers and four freshmen since her arrival in Mid-Missouri this past December.
• The Tigers return juniors Jordan Iliff, Lauren Forbes, Morgan Isenberg, and sophomores Madilyn Sell and Janet deMarrais from the 2022 team.
• Iliff, a right side hitter from St. Louis, was named to the 2023 USA Volleyball Women’s Collegiate National Team in June. The junior was third on Mizzou offensively in 2022 with 227 kills (2.39 kills per set).
• Missouri finished the 2022 campaign with a 9-19 record, placing 13th in the SEC with a 2-16 mark.

NEW FACES ON THE BENCH

• The 2023 team features a multitude of new staff members in addition to head coach Dawn Sullivan.
• Cullen Irons, who coached with Sullivan at UNLV, was added as an assistant coach in January.
• Wendel Camargo and Arielle Wilson will serve as Sullivan’s Recruiting Coordinators. Wilson, a four-time NCAA Champion, and four-time Big Ten Champion at Penn State, is also the Defensive Coordinator.
• Technical Coordinator Jhenna Gabriel competed for Sullivan at UNLV in 2022, helping the Rebels secure the Mountain West Regular-Season Championship and a berth in the NCAA Tournament. Gabriel also earned All-American honors at Texas before her graduate transfer season at UNLV.

NEWCOMERS

• The 2023 team features 11 newcomers with seven transfers and four freshmen.
• Libero Maya Sands was Dawn Sullivan‘s first addition in January, transferring to Mizzou from UNLV.
• Other transfers include right side hitter Naomi Franco, setter Luisa Melloni, setter Sarah White, right side hitter/middle hitter Kimani Johnson, outside hitter Dilara Gedikoglu and middle blocker Colleen Finney.
• Sullivan also signed four freshmen in setter/libero Tatum Longnecker, outside hitter/right side hitter Chapel Dobbs, Columbia libero Kaylen Rush and setter Sierra Dudley.

LOOKING AHEAD

• Mizzou next continues SEC play with a two-match road swing Sept. 29 through Oct. 1.
• The Tigers first head to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to take on LSU (7:30 p.m., CT) on Friday, Sept. 29, before trekking to College Station, Texas, for a meeting with Texas A&M (3 p.m., CT) on Sunday, Oct. 1.
• The LSU match will be streamed on SEC Network+ while the Texas A&M match can be found on SEC Network.

FOLLOW THE TIGERS

• For all the latest information on Mizzou Volleyball, please visit MUTigers.com. For up-to-the-minute updates, follow the Tigers on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
• Single-match and Season Tickets for Mizzou Volleyball are currently on sale now at mutigers.com/feature/VBTix.