Glimpsing at this season’s Texas Volleyball schedule quickly reveals an obvious conclusion. The Longhorns have a gauntlet ahead as they face many of the country’s top-ranked teams.
Taking on the top tiers, Texas will play eight teams ranked in the 2017 AVCA Final Coaches Poll, including four ranked in the Top-12 and a whopping nine participants from the 2017 NCAA Tournament.
“This schedule is arguably the toughest we’ve ever had in our 18 years,” Longhorns Head Coach Jarrett Elliott said. “There’s no easy matches for us, so we’ve got to make sure that we’re coming out and playing.”
The scheduling came by design, according to Elliott. To challenge his squad and force them to play at their top-level in every contest, and also to hopefully put the team in a good position to earn a coveted 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament.
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“It would be nice to go unscathed through this but I’m assuming that we’re going to take some losses at times,” Elliott said. ““It will put us in a position, if we can do fairly well, with our win-loss record to be a top-four team. More importantly, it will teach us what we need to work on.”
Fully embracing the scintillating slate ahead of them, senior middle blocker Morgan Johnson said the Longhorns are excited for the challenge and chance to compete against the class of college volleyball early and often.
“I don’t think there is a harder schedule in college volleyball,” Johnson said. “Usually teams get to ease their way into the season and we don’t have that luxury. I think that’s great for us because we have to come in and hit the ground running, and I love that.”
The road is rough from the get-go, as Texas opens its season this weekend at the VERT Challenge In Lincoln, Neb., starting the season against No. 18 Oregon at 3:30 today before facing No. 7 Florida on Saturday.
“It will put us in a position, if we can do fairly well, with our win-loss record to be a top-four team. More importantly, it will teach us what we need to work on,” Elliott said. “The great thing about playing this competition is that you learn real fast where your areas of weakness and how other coaches are scouting you.”
One interesting facet of the season comes when Texas finishes out the nonconference portion of their schedule with a home-and-home series against top-ranked powerhouse Stanford. The two teams will have the attention of the volleyball world as they play in Palo Alto, Calif. on Tuesday, Sept. 11, then again in Gregory Gym on Friday, Sept. 14.
Notes
Elliott said he was impressed with the newcomers demeanors as the six freshmen got to see their first action in Gregory Gymnasium during the Orange-and-White scrimmage Aug. 18.
“I really liked what I saw,” Elliott said. “As I was watching I was just trying to see if I would notice their behavior, their attitudes, and their body language would show that they are freshmen and I didn’t see that at all. They were just steady, and their communication and routines were really good. So that’s good sign for us.”
Among those freshmen was Katarina Luketic, who recently joined the team and hails from Zagreb, Croatia. Luketic had this to say about her new team playing in front of Texas fans for the first time.
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