21-2.
Is that Colt McCoy‘s regular-season record during his junior and senior seasons? No, actually McCoy was even better: 24-1. But an equally impressive number is what the No. 10 Texas Longhorns’ volleyball team has put up winning all but two sets during their seven-match winning streak, capped by a 3-1 victory over No. 2 Nebraska.
After warming up with easy matchups against Kansas, Kansas State, and Texas Tech, the Horns easily dismantled the favored Cornhuskers last Wednesday and are starting to look like the team that was ranked in the Top 5 at the beginning of the season before losing four of their first nine matches.
Texas won’t play in Austin again until next Saturday, November 6, but it’ll be worth the wait seeing as how it’s against longtime rival Oklahoma, who Texas beat 3-1 in Norman earlier this month. And playing a rival like Oklahoma couldn’t have come at a better time.
As mentioned in last week’s post, the key to Texas’ success was going to rely on not depending on senior All-America outside hitter Juliann Faucette to lead the team like last year’s star, Destinee Hooker, did, but rather to have everyone on the team be involved. In Texas’ biggest win of the year, that’s exactly what happened.
Junior Amber Roberson led the team in kills with 16, but Faucette was just behind with 14, creating a two-headed attack that Nebraska couldn’t contain, let alone stop. And when Jennifer Doris, Rachael Adams, and Sha’Dare McNeal were given opportunities to attack, they seized them by all having a hitting percentage over .375.
Yep, at least one Texas sports program is firing on all cylinders for a considerable length of time. Let’s hope they keep rolling and steal some of the thunder from the big boys of football and basketball.
Vs. Oklahoma: Sat., Nov. 6, 4pm. Gregory Gym, 2101 Speedway, 476-6666.
This article appears in Rick Perry (Digital Edition).