COLUMBIA, Mo. — Fifth-year setter Caroline Kerr eclipsed the 4,000 career assists mark, but its wasn’t enough as No. 6 Tennessee dropped a five-set match on the road against Missouri (25-21, 21-25, 26-24, 25-27, 9-15) on Sunday afternoon at the Hearnes Center.
The Champaign, Illinois, native became just the fourth player in program history to reach 4,000 career assists. Kerr reached the career milestone early in the first set. Kerr also finished the match with the 32nd double-double of her career, posting 51 assists and a career-high 20 digs.
The Lady Vols (16-5, 7-4 SEC) finished with 68 kills on .242 hitting, 60 assists and four aces. Defensively, UT recorded 74 digs and seven blocks. Three players finished with double-digit kills.
Kennedi Rogers led the team with 20 kills to go along with six digs. Senior Jalyn Stout was close behind with 15 kills, adding 12 digs for a double-double. Maggie Dostic reach double-figures with 12 kills, and also notched a double-double with 10 digs.
Senior libero Raegan Burns posted 19 digs and two aces. Jolene Oddo paced Tennessee in blocks with five, followed by Dostic with three.
Missouri (15-9, 7-4 SEC) tallied 71 kills on a .274 hitting percentage in the match. The Tigers assisted 64 of its 71 kills, and finished with 74 digs, 14 blocks and six aces.
Tennessee took the first set to take the early lead in the match. Tennessee led throughout the first set behind 19 kills and a .325 hitting percentage. Rogers and Stout led the team with five kills each in the first set, while Kerr facilitated the offense with 15 assists.
Missouri came back to even the match in the second, thanks to 18 kills and a .429 hitting percentage. UT was not able to keep up with the Missouri attack in the second set, recording 12 kills on a .205 hitting percentage. The Lady Vols would battle back in the third. After falling behind midway through the set, UT would power through to get the third set victory and take a 2-1 lead into the fourth.
Both teams traded points to begin the fourth set. The set went into bonus ball, with both teams tied at 25 apiece. Missouri would win the next two points to tie the match at two sets each to send the match to the fifth. Tennessee would come up short in the final frame, as the Tigers hit .385 while UT had three attack errors.
Up next, Tennessee returns home for its final home matches of the regular season. The home stand begins on Friday against Mississippi State at 6:30 p.m. ET and finishes on Sunday against Alabama at 2 p.m. ET. Both matches will be streamed on SEC Network+.
