The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
8-0
Nebraska
6-3
No. 2 Volleyball escapes No. 9 Nebraska in Lincoln
09.20.2014 | Volleyball
Texas moves to 8-0 on the season after defeating No. 9 Nebraska.
LINCOLN, Neb. – No. 2 Texas Volleyball (8-0, 0-0) defeated No. 9 Nebraska (5-3, 0-0), 3-2 (25-23, 21-25, 25-19, 23-25, 15-8) on Saturday on the Huskers' home court in front of a crowd of 8,312 on Saturday afternoon.
Junior Amy Neal had a career day for the undefeated Longhorns after posting15 kills and 15 digs for her first double-double of the season.
Senior Haley Eckerman had a season-high 20 kills, while senior Khat Bell chipped in 11 kills, eight digs and seven blocks.
Freshman Cat McCoy also had a season-high mark with 21 digs and four assists, while sophomore Nicole Dalton recorded her third double-double of the season with 22 assists and 10 digs.
Six different players posted at least two blocks, as Bell led with seven, junior Molly McCage had six, sophomore Chiaka Ogbogu and freshman Mirta Baselovic added four each, junior Sara Hattis had three and Eckerman, two.
The first set featured 13 ties and six lead changes. Neither team led by more than two points. The match was tied at 22 when UT won two-consecutive points for its first set point. The Huskers held them off for one, but Eckerman's kill sealed the first set for the Longhorns, 25-23.
The second set was a different story, as the Huskers fired out to a 6-2 lead. Texas could not narrow the gap until taking seven out of the next 10 points to tie the score at 17; however, UT could not close in completely and Nebraska took set two, 25-21. Neal had five kills in the set.
In the third set, Texas jumped out to an 8-5 lead, but the Huskers fired back and tied it up at 9. From there, UT maintained control, but never led by more than three. Nebraska fired back again to tie it at 18. The Longhorns did not let up and won seven of the last eight points to take the set, 25-19.
In the fourth set, Texas sat in the driver's seat, leading by as many as five before Nebraska slowly chipped away at the lead, then went on a 7-0 run to take a 20-15 lead. The Longhorns answered and took the lead one more time, but NU came out on top, 25-23.
Texas jumped out to an early 5-1 lead early in the fifth set, but Nebraska was pesky as the Longhorns tried to close out the match. The Huskers pulled within three, but UT won the last five points of the match to win, 15-8.
It marked the third-straight time Texas has defeated Nebraska and the sixth win in the last seven meetings.
Texas will have a quick turnaround before beginning Big 12 Conference play in Morgantown, W.V. on Wednesday, Sept. 24. The match against the Mountaineers is scheduled for 6 p.m. CT and will be televised on ESPNU.
Post-match Comments
Texas Head Coach Jerritt Elliott
On the team's performance today: We had a hard time finding our rhythm today. Nebraska played well, but we just couldn't get our offensive system going and we made a lot of errors that we haven't been making. When you do that, you put yourself in a position to lose a lot of games. We were fortunate to pull out game number one, or else this could have been a different match.
On the game's environment: It's so great for us. Amy Neal has never really had a starting position, our setters are both new, our libero is new, we have a lot of new players in positions and I feel like that caused a little bit of chaos. They couldn't settle down. We challenged them pretty strongly in the locker room between games two and three and I felt like we slowly got better as the match went on.
On when he moved Neal over to the left side: (We moved her) last spring. She's been training over there, but she was behind Bailey (Webster) and she has been able to work on her serve-receive and her control and has been playing well on the left.
On Texas' floor defense this year: I think our ball control is much-improved, I think our floor defense is a lot stronger. I really like this team, I just never got comfortable with what we did today. I feel like we've got some good pieces, I feel with the ability to have the ball control and the defense, we can have better transition swings, which we didn't get today. I feel good about what our ball control looks like right now.
On Haley Eckerman's performance in high-pressure situations: Luckily, she has some experience with that. She has been struggling with getting her feet to the ball all year and driving at the right tempo. She had a couple swings early in game one. If I recall right, we had an opportunity to break the game open and she kind of hit straight into the block, but I think she got some adrenaline, took some big swings and made some big plays for us.
On Pilar Victoria: She played great for us. She has been a starter for us—she has been lighting up our gym. She has had a couple of tough matches and Amy has been playing really, really well. With our team, there is no position that is safe. The challenge on a daily basis creates a lot of competitiveness, but sometimes that can be a problem too, because we are switching players in and out and the continuity isn't always there. We will get that as we get some more consistency, but we like what Pilar does.
On feeling confident in Victoria at the end of the game: First of all, I didn't have any more timeouts, so I tried to get us a break and get better serve and receive touches. We weren't setting the right side a lot, so with her, I thought we could get some better swings over there. The way she was swinging gave me a lot of confidence to put her in game five and hold on our passing.
On what Texas did to win the fifth set: We just played steady. Our offense was better, I thought our blocking was better, our touches. We stayed a little more consistent and I thought they started making some more errors and gave us some opportunities to widen the gap there. When you are a good blocking team and you play good defense, you can wear your opponent down. I thought for the first time at the end of game four and game five, we were more consistent with our blocking and our touches.
