The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
15-1, 7-1
Oklahoma
15-6, 6-2
No. 2 Volleyball falls to Oklahoma in front of record crowd
10.25.2014 | Volleyball
Texas suffers its first loss of the season.
AUSTIN, Texas –No. 2 Texas Volleyball (15-1, 7-1 Big 12) fell to the Oklahoma Sooners, 3-0 (26-24, 26-24, 26-24), Saturday evening in front of an attendance of 4,402, the highest in Gregory Gym's current configuration, topping the previous record of 4,392 vs. Baylor on Nov. 30, 2013.
The loss snapped a 34-match regular season winning streak, a 34-match home winning streak and a 53-match Big 12 home winning streak. All three were program records. It was also the first time Texas was swept at home since facing No. 5 Illinois on Sept. 3, 2010, a streak of 63 matches.
Three-time All-American senior Haley Eckerman led the Longhorns with 10 kills and two blocks, while two-time All-American senior Khat Bell chipped in nine kills and six blocks and All-American sophomore Chiaka Ogbogu added eight kills and six blocks.
In the first set, Texas came out swinging with four kills, including three from Eckerman, to build a 5-2 lead. Texas maintained its lead until a 4-1 run by Oklahoma (15-6, 6-2 Big 12) forced the Longhorns to call a timeout with the score knotted at 19. An attack error from Eckerman allowed Oklahoma to take its first lead of the set at 21-20, but Texas regained the lead with back-to-back kills. The match continued back-and-forth until two Oklahoma kills put the first set away, 26-24. Although Texas had a .400 kill percentage and held the Sooners to a .250 percentage, the Horns recorded seven service errors.
After losing the first set of the season at home, Texas built an early 5-1 lead, but a 5-0 Oklahoma run tied the score at 11. UT did not regain the lead until two kills and a service ace put the Horns up 19-18. After back-and-forth play, Texas recorded three kills to build a 24-22 lead, but Oklahoma would respond with its own 4-0 run to close out the second set, 26-24. The set saw nine ties and seven lead changes.
After the intermission, Oklahoma started out strong with an early 5-1 lead, but Molly McCage's three kills led Texas to tie it up for the first time of the set at nine. The Sooners had their biggest lead of the set at 19-15, before a 5-2 run by Texas forced a timeout. Oklahoma would win two quick points after the timeout, but three points from the Longhorns tied it up at 23-23. However the Sooners put the match away, led by two kills from Madison Ward to close out the set, 26-24.
Kierra Holst led the Sooners with 16 kills and two service aces.
Texas resumes play Monday and Tuesday nights, hosting Zhejiang, a Chinese professional team. Both matches are set to begin at 7 p.m. CT and will be televised nationally on Longhorn Network.
Postgame Comments
Texas head coach Jerritt Elliott
On how the team came out and played: I thought we did fine. It was 14-10 in game one, we missed seven serves in game one and that kind of became a stress level for us and carried over to all parts of the game. We were never able to get the composure that we needed and we were on our heels from that point on. We were trying to break through it and Oklahoma played well and made plays.
On the last three games: I would hope that this would be a wake-up call for them to understand that urgency and what we need to do. You can get complacent, I think what happens at the end of the day is, if you're in the right mindset, you're ready for a battle. But what happened is, we were ready to play, but we weren't ready to get hit in the mouth and we weren't able to get ourselves comfortable after that. As a result, we still hit better than they did, we had a lot more stuffed blocks than they did and managed our attack really well, but every little broken play that could've gone wrong, went wrong.
Message now with upcoming game: We have to get back and get better. It's a long season and at the end of the day, we still have an opportunity to win the conference and that's what our first goal is. We have to get back to the drawing board. It's hard to go undefeated through a season and there are nights when things don't go well. That's what I told them in the third game. It's like, "look we're not playing well, we just have to find a way to get one game and we can have a chance at winning this thing." I think we would have gotten a game. But we'll just get back and we'll learn from this and adjust. It's not going to dictate anything except, hopefully mentality and understanding of what we need to do.
Sophomore Setter Chloe Collins
On the mentality of the team: I thought we came in with the same mindset we have every game and we prepared just like we do every game. I thought we had the right mentality coming into this game.
On what the players are telling each other: We basically look each other in the eyes and we say what we need to do, we need to check ourselves to mentally refocus and say what we need to do.
On what they'll take from the loss: It's a wake-up call, like Jerritt says. We need perspective that every team is going to play their best and we need to be ready. As a team, we just need to get back in practice and prepare
