Longhorns sweep Baylor to finish undefeated in Big 12 play

The Longhorns finished their regular season undefeated in Big 12 Conference play for the first time in school history. No. 1 Texas swept Baylor (25-20, 25-16, 25-14) on Saturday in Austin in front of a record large crowd – the largest ever at the current Gregory Gym. No. 1 Texas (23-2, 16-0 Big 12) finished the season riding a 19 game winning streak and is only the second school to post an undefeated Big 12 record. [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] The Longhorns have won 49 consecutive conference matches at home.

“What a great crowd we had,” Texas head coach Jerritt Elliott said. “Accomplished something that no other class before has ever accomplished. We went undefeated in the Big 12 and it is a major accomplishment for this team and this group and now we are excited to get on to the NCAA Tournament.”

On Sunday evening, the Longhorns were selected as the No. 1 overall seed in the 2013 NCAA Championship tournament and will host the first and second rounds of the tournament this week. Texas will face Texas State in a first round match on December 5th. With a victory, the Longhorns would face the winner of the other first round game played in Austin between Texas A&M and the University of Texas at San Antonio. This is the second straight year that former rival Texas A&M was seeded in the same bracket as Texas. With a win through the first two rounds, Texas would head to Nebraska for the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight rounds the following week.

Junior outside hitter Haley Eckerman led with 20 kills and committed no errors against the Bears (12-20, 4-12 Big 12). Senior Sarah Palmer contributed 11 digs and senior Hannah Allison finished with 34 assists. Texas outhit Baylor .425 to .176 through three sets. Baylor committed 19 errors to Texas’ six. Junior middle blocker Khat Bell tied a career-high three service aces on Saturday.

After an early tie, Texas commanded a small lead throughout the first set until Baylor tied it up again at 18-all. A kill by Eckerman sparked a 7-2 run by the Longhorns to win the set. Texas hit .379 in the first set while Baylor hit .265. In addition, the Bears out-killed the Longhorns 15-13.

While the Bears kept it competitive in the first set, the Longhorns turned early leads into easy victories through the final two sets to sweep the Bears.

“I think we made good adjustments on defense,” Allison said of what changed after the first set. “They came out and played really well the first game and it took us too long to make adjustments but when we did about the beginning of the second game, you could tell and it resulted in more points for us.”

Texas took an early lead in the second set over Baylor, who was not able to mount a comeback. An 8-0 lead later in the set to cap off the 25-16 victory. In set three, the Longhorns again jumped out to a quick lead and Baylor wasn’t able to get anything going.

Texas had four seniors player their final home game on Saturday against the Baylor Bears – Allison and Palmer along with libero Megan Futch and outside hitter Bailey Webster.

Allison was named to the 2012 NCAA All-Tournament last season. Currently, Allison has 604 assists on the season, 3436 career assists.

Webster was named the 2012 NCAA Tournament most outstanding player and was named to the 2012 NCAA All-Tournament Team after the Longhorns’ performance in the national championship last year. Currently she has 308 kills and is hitting .292 on the season.

“I didn’t want my emotions to overtake my playing in the game,” Webster said. “Although I started to think about it in the beginning, I put it aside but now that the game is over I am starting to feel more emotion and thinking about things.”

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