Georgia Sweeps Missouri to Open Weekend Series

Saturday, November 13

Athens, Ga.

2:00 p.m.

University of Georgia

9-15,5-8SEC

Missouri

4-23,1-13SEC

Missouri

Georgia

November 13, 2021 | Volleyball

Box Score

ATHENS, Ga. – The University of Georgia women's volleyball team recorded a sweep of Missouri Saturday afternoon in straight sets to open the weekend series at Stegeman Coliseum (25-13, 25-21, 25-17).

The win over Missouri snapped a five-match losing streak to the Tigers and is the first win over MU in Athens since 2014.

Junior outside hitter Kacie Evans paced the Bulldogs offense with 12 kills, hitting .385. She put up seven digs and a pair of blocks against the Tigers. Senior Kayla Rivera tallied nine kills while Sage Naves and Amber Stivrins added eight. As a team, the Bulldogs hit .429.

Defensively, freshmen Bailey Cox and Clara Brower each put up a team-best eight digs. Senior Dalaney Hans dished out 22 assists with seven digs and co-led the team with Cox with a pair of aces.

Georgia (9-15, 5-8) won the first three rallies of the match to gain early momentum. Down by a handful, Missouri (4-23, 1-13) used its first timeout of the opening stanza with the Bulldogs ahead 13-8. A strong serving run by Hans strung six-straight points together for the Bulldogs to open a 10-point lead, 21-11. The opening stanza concluded on a 10-2 Georgia run en route to a 25-13 win. Evans tallied five kills to begin the match while Rivera added four. As a team, Georgia hit .640 in the first.

The Tigers capitalized on Georgia errors to capture an early lead in the second. A 7-1 Bulldog run gave Georgia a 9-7 lead. A 5-1 Tiger run knotted the set at 16-all. Down one, 19-18, Georgia strung together three points to go ahead 21-19 and force a final Tiger timeout. Georgia held on to take the set 25-21 and a capture 2-0 lead in the match.

Following a good finish in the second, Georgia came out in set three with a 7-1 lead, forcing a quick Missouri break. The Tigers' second break came after three-straight from Georgia, widening the lead to seven, 16-9. Missouri would cut the Dog lead to four, but Georgia held on to complete the sweep, 25-17.

The Bulldogs and Tigers will conclude their weekend series Sunday at Stegeman Coliseum. First serve on ESPNU is set for 12 p.m. live from Athens.

Head Women's Volleyball Coach Tom Black
On what sparked the mindset turnaround within the team…
"The first match against Auburn, we were super disappointed. I thought Auburn played well, but I thought our energy was unacceptable. We kind of had a gut check as a program, and it's been a good response since then."

How the focus of the team has shifted since the Auburn matches…
"I think we've gotten past some of the excuses and gotten our focus on execution, getting better, and competing, which is where it needs to be to be successful. There's definitely been some maturing from the team."

Senior setter Dalaney Hans
On winning recent success of the team…
"In between those two Auburn games, we came together as a team and reevaluated what our goals were as a team. Since then, we've just been going up, and with each game, we've been playing better volleyball."

On what sparked the mindset turnaround within the team…
"We had a meeting before our second Auburn game as a team. We came together and said, 'enough is enough.' Our strength in our team is that we all get along together, and we genuinely do all like each other. We know that's our strength going in, so we realized that we needed to get back to that. We needed to get back to that being our strength. Coming out after that second Auburn match, we've playing like it. We've played together. We've played like a team, and we've been connected. You can tell that we've been doing that because we've been winning."