OMAHA, Neb.—Texas survived a shaky start and Nebraska’s overwhelming home-court advantage to advance to the national final four in volleyball with a four-set win over the Cornhuskers in the NCAA Omaha Regional on Saturday night.
Destinee Hooker and Juliann Faucette combined for 32 kills, and the Big 12 champion Longhorns became the first team to beat the Huskers three times in the same season.
They won 21-25, 25-18, 25-16, 25-17 in front of 9,253 vocal Big Red fans at the Qwest Center, 50 miles from the Nebraska campus in Lincoln.
“Tonight was about mental toughness and holding down the fort,” Texas coach Jerritt Elliott said. “We talked about circling the wagons because it was going to be us on the bench against the thousands of fans they had. They were going to have to be the best they’ve been mentally all yearlong, and maybe ever as an athlete, and they responded.”
The second-ranked Longhorns (28-1) will take a 10-match win streak into their national semifinal against Minnesota on Thursday in Tampa, Fla. The other semifinal pits Penn State against either Michigan or Hawaii.
No. 7 Nebraska (26-7), in a regional final for the sixth straight year, came into the match with a season-best 10-match win streak in which they had not lost a set.
The Huskers started with a flurry, winning five of the first six points on their way to their 31st consecutive set win.
With the second set tied 16-16, Texas broke things open with a 5-0 run aided by four Nebraska errors. Gina Mancuso’s kill pulled the Huskers to 21-18, but after a Texas timeout, the Longhorns scored the last four points on consecutive kills by Faucette, a kill by Hooker and a double block by Faucette and Rachael Adams.
“The big key is that Nebraska has been hot,” Elliott said. “They won 10 in a row without losing a season. If we got that second second, we figured they would start questioning themselves and we would get confidence from it.”
Hooker, who had 23 kills against Texas A&M on Friday, had 18 more against the Huskers and was named the regional’s Most Outstanding Player. When Hooker wasn’t on the attack, the Longhorns turned to Faucette, who had 14 kills from the right side.
“We just started to gain composure and confidence in our rhythm and passing,” Faucette said. “We were off on our passing in the first set, but looking at everybody’s faces, I could tell that we weren’t done.”
Lindsey Licht had 12 kills, Kori Cooper 11 and Tara Mueller 10 for the Huskers, who hit .179 after committing 26 attack errors. The Huskers also had eight service errors, with three of them coming early in the second set.
“That took the momentum and dumped the pressure back on us,” Nebraska coach John Cook said. “From there our serving became very tentative. Those multiple errors really hurt. Against some teams, you can get away with that, but not in a regional final.”
