TEXAS VOLLEYBALL TAKES APART DEFENDING NATIONAL CHAMPION PENN STATE TO ADVANCE TO SWEET 16

AUSTIN - Jerritt Elliott didn't take the bait.

After sweeping their opponent for the second straight night, the Texas volleyball coach didn't really think his third-overall seeded team needed to have a practice session after steamrolling No. 25 Penn State.

You know, just to get some work in.

As Elliott put it, "A coach always thinks you can use some practice."

But that's as far as the Longhorn legend would take it even if his fresh and rested team won 25-16, 25-9, 25-19 against defending national champion Penn State in 76 minutes after cruising past Florida A&M 3-0 in 70 minutes the previous night. That makes 14 sweeps if you're counting.

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In fact, just as in Friday's first-round game, Texas trailed only 3-2 in one set for the second consecutive game before asserting complete control and totally breaking the will of one of the most storied programs in volleyball history to reach the Sweet 16 for the 20th straight year.

When that point came exactly was subject for argument even though Longhorn junior setter Ella Swindle said, "I'd say probably throughout the entire match. I don't think there was one specific point. We continued to pressure them all the time."

That was not up for debate.

Penn State head coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley saw it all pretty clearly as well and didn't shy away from the fact her eighth-seeded club was dominated.

"You saw the scores, right?" the fourth-year coach said. "We were definitely on our heels."

Texas does that to teams.

Besides boasting national Player of the Year candidate in junior outside hitter Torrey Stafford, who had a match-high 21 kills as well as five digs and three blocks, Elliott has a variety of high-powered weapons to stymie an opponent.

Like Abby Vander Wal, who had an electric 10 kills, and Cari Spears, who had nine with her seventh game above .400 at .467. Both of those are freshmen - Spears is the daughter of former Dallas Cowboys lineman and current ESPN analyst Marcus Spears, who was there to root her on - and help make Texas such an explosive and disruptive force and impossible to deal with, even for an unbeaten Nebraska, the top seed overall, or Pitt. Kentucky, a No. 1 like Texas, has the talent to match the Longhorns and won two matches against the Longhorns, both in the regular season and in the SEC championship final.

But this team starts with Stafford, who hit .556 Saturday for her fourth match over .500 this season. She and her teammates put so much pressure on defenses that the Lions were checked on just a .124 hitting percentage and finished with 22 attack errors. Texas, meanwhile, had just five.

This is a driven team, energized by the addition of the talented rookies and a transfer like Stafford from Pitt. Charged up from the sellout crowd of 3,918 fans at Gregory Gym, the team didn't trail until the third set and even then only briefly at 3-2 on a kill shot from 6-6 Florida transfer Kennedy Martin when Vander Wal's strike tied it and Stafford's dump shot reasserted Texas in control.

"I'm super happy with the way we're playing," Elliott said. "We were efficient at the serving line and receiving, and we executed the gameplan at a high level."

The Longhorns improved to 25-3, losing only to the Wildcats and Texas A&M, but are playing well in every facet of the game.

They catch No. 15 Indiana, which is new to the playoff scene and will be playing in just its second Sweet 16, with the first coming in 2010, and would probably have to get past Wisconsin or Stanford to make the Final Four. Texas beat both those two teams in the first two weeks of this season and can profit from the experience of libero Ramsey Gary, who transferred from indiana and had a terrific game Saturday with 12 digs.

In short, Texas is a complete team and playing at the highest level at the most critical time of the year.

How solid was this performance?

Elliott noted that he didn't call one timeout all evening.

Why would he unless he wanted to change holiday recipes for Christmas cookies?

At no time were the Longhorns more dominant than in the second set when they rattled off 11 straight points on Swindle's serve and win 14 of 15 points.

"They played exceptional," Schumacher-Cawley said. "We made a lot of unforced errors and couldn't help ourselves. I thought they played well and did their job."

She won a national championship last year in her third season since replacing Russ Rose, the dean of college volleyball coaches, after he led the Nittany Lions to seven titles in his 43 years. And knows full well how hard it is to defend a title.

Elliott won back-to-back championships in 2022 and 2023 and is eager to return to the Final Four after bowing out of last year's playoffs in a regional semifinal loss to Creighton at a tournament Penn State hosted.

The Lions, meanwhile, do return Martin and Emmi Sellman as well as sophomore Caroline Jurevicius and her freshman sister Ava, the daughters of former Penn State wide receiver great Joe Jurevicius.

For Texas, it's just getting revved up.

"The top 25, top 30 teams are all flipping around," Schumacher-Cawley said. "It's hard to win. This sport is just so competitive. There are a lot of great teams."

And the Longhorns could well be the best of them even though a true nitpicker could point out that four of Texas' five service errors on the night came in the final set.

Elliott certainly noticed. But then, he's always got an eye out for something to work on.

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2025-12-07T04:46:45Z