By Steve Habel/Senior Editor
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Plenty of folks didn’t even give the Texas volleyball team a puncher’s chance at beating top-ranked Nebraska in the two teams’ national semifinal match Thursday. But it turned out that the fourth-seeded Longhorns had their longtime rivals right where they wanted them.
So when Texas, in command throughout and playing with a swagger, cruised to a 25-18, 25-23, 25-21 sweep of the defending national-champion Cornhuskers, there was more of a sense of workmanlike achievement from the Longhorns rather than surprise. Maybe the college volleyball world or many of the crowd of 16,670 at Nationwide Arena thought this outcome was a surprise or an upset, but UT head coach Jerritt Elliott sure didn’t think so.
“We had a lot of self-confidence [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]coming into this match,” he said. “I’ve been to a lot of Final Fours and this is the calmest I’ve been, because I thought we would perform at a high level tonight and [the players] proved that.
“Sometime when the road is not as smooth you gain a little bit of character and it allows you to become a little more hungry. We’ve struggled some this season, and had our ups and downs, but we’ve grown together and we are on the top of our game right now.”
Texas (27-4) moves on to face sixth-seeded Stanford in the national championship match Saturday evening. The Cardinal upset — there’s that word again — third-seeded Minnesota in four sets in the other national semifinal.
UT had lost to Nebraska in straight sets the past two times the teams played, in last year’s championship final and in the first week of this season. But the Longhorns showed no fear of the Cornhuskers, nor the pressure-packed situation, turning the tables on Nebraska by beating it in every phase of the match. Texas had just eight hitting errors in the victory.
“I felt like we were all so calm, and all our emotions were in check,” Texas opposite Ebony Nwanebu said. “We really, really wanted this.”
Nwanebu led the Longhorns with 15 kills while swinging at .378 percent and committing just one hitting error. Outside hitter Paula Prieto Cerame added 12 kills, setter Chloe Collins distributed 37 assists and pulled up 11 digs and defensive specialists Cat McCoy and Autumn Rounsaville had 12 and 10 digs, respectively.
“Last year it was disappointing, and that loss fueled our fire,” McCoy said. “It’s a huge rivalry and playing them and performing the way we did tonight was very gratifying.”
Mikaela Foecke paced Nebraska (31-3) with 13 kills while Kelly Hunter had 37 assists and Kadie Rolfzen saved 14 digs.
“I didn’t think we were tired or flat, but maybe we were a little frantic tonight,” Nebraska coach John Cook said. “We were all over the place and Texas never let up on us.”
Texas controlled the first set, running away from a 10-10 tie with four consecutive points — two of them earned on kills from White — to take a 14-10 lead. The Longhorns’ defense made a statement in the middle of the set as back-to-back blocks by Yaasmeen Bedart-Ghani and Prieto Cerame helped push the Texas lead to 19-15 before a kill and an ace by Nwanebu put the Longhorns in control at 23-18.
A Nebraska hitting error and a net violation, an indication that the Cornhuskers had been pushed out of sorts by Texas’ aggressiveness, handed the Longhorns the first set at 25-18. Texas outhit the Cornhuskers, .323-.108, in that opening set.
The second set was nip-and-tuck throughout with neither team able to create separation until the final points. With the set tied at 17 Prieto Cerame ripped a down-the-line kill to give Texas an 18-17 lead, but the Longhorns gifted that point right back with a service error by McCoy. Nebraska returned the favor with its own service error to garner the Longhorns a 21-20 advantage, and a block by White pushed the Texas lead to two points.
Another error and then another service error gave the Longhorns two set points, at 24-22, and set the table for a set-winning kill by Prieto Cerame at 25-23. The Longhorns enjoyed a .244-.186 advantage in hitting in the set.
“We had the matchups that we wanted, especially in the first two sets,” Elliott said. “Our blocking was good tonight and we did some things we wanted to do on the serve.”
Texas only trailed once, at 2-1 in the third set, running away to a 6-2 lead on a combo block from Nwanebu and Morgan Johnson, a ringing kill by White and another shared block by Micaya White and Johnson. Nebraska got as close as 16-15 on back-to-back kills from Amber Rolfzen and Andie Malloy as part of a 4-1 run, but the Longhorns responded with kills from Prieto Cerame and Nwanebu and a lack of focus by the usually unflappable Cornhuskers when they allowed a pass just to fall to the floor at 19-15.
A tip kill by Nwanebu, a block from White and another kill by Nwanebu put the Longhorns on the cusp of a win in the third set, and Johnson finished things off with a slide kill from the middle to grant Texas a 25-21 third-set win, the match and a berth in the championship final.
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