TAMPA, Fla. – Madisen Skinner had 16 kills and Ella Swindle became the fourth true freshman setter to lead her team to a national championship as Texas defended its NCAA Volleyball title by dominating No. 1 overall seed Nebraska 3-0 on Sunday.
With Skinner, named the Most Outstanding Player with 34 kills in the Final Four, the Longhorns (28—4) ran their tournament winning streak to 12 by becoming the first team to win consecutive championship matches 3-0. Texas won its fourth NCAA crown 25-22, 25-14, 25-11 by sweeping the Cornhuskers (33-2), who had lost just one set in the tournament.
“My teammates, oh my gosh, just the support,” Skinner said. “Just the belief we have in each other. Ever since I’ve been here I just knew it was the place to be. I felt I’m part of a family, something bigger than myself. The people surrounding me made this all possible.”
Texas returned 11 players off its championship team, although MVP Logan Eggleston graduated. The experience showed against a Nebraska team that was trying to join the 1985 Pacific team as the only champions without a senior.
The young Cornhuskers were out of sync most of the day, with much of the credit going to the Longhorns’ service game that produced a championship-match record 12 aces.
The match ended on an ace by Asjia O’Neal, giving her a career-high five. Skinner had a career-high six aces in a 3-1 semifinal win over Wisconsin. Keonilei Akana, who played her first two seasons at Nebraska, ended the 2022 tournament with an ace for a 3-0 sweep of Louisville and had two more against her former team on Sunday.
Skinner hit .273 with the 16 kills and seven errors on 33 total attempts. Jenna Wenaas added nine kills, hitting .293. Swindle had five kills, hit .333 and had 21 assists with seven digs. O’Neal, had four kills and hit .375. The sixth-year senior and daughter of former NBA player Jermaine O’Neal had just four errors in six NCAA tournament matches.
Skinner won a national championship as a freshman at Kentucky in 2020 by beating Texas. She won her third title, as did Longhorns’ coach Jerritt Elliott.
Texas was No. 1 in the preseason poll but lost three of its first eight matches and fell out of the Top 10 while Nebraska opened the season with 27 straight wins and moved from fifth to first, staying there despite a 3-0 loss to Wisconsin.
“I think it has to do with our culture,” O’Neal said. “Our coaches do an incredible job of putting the right girls here who love each other and care for one another. Obviously, we didn’t have the best start to our season … but we trusted the process and because of our love for one another we were able to continue to get better and peak at the right time.”
Nebraska entered its 11th final leading the nation in hitting percentage defense at .135 and held its first five tournament opponents to .098 but Texas hit .264, including .481 in the final set. Meanwhile, the Cornhuskers, who hit .278 for the year, hit a season-worst .013, which was the best for the Longhorns this year.
Harper Murray had seven kills for Nebraska, which had 20 kills and 19 attack errors. The Cornhuskers had only one block after recording eight blocks in the first set of their semifinal sweep of Pittsburgh.
Texas lost championship games to Nebraska in 1995 and 2015. The Longhorns, a No. 2 regional seed, knocked off the top three overall seeds in their last three matches, starting with Stanford in the regional final.
The Longhorns won a first set that was marked by a red card on Elliott. With the penalty point for Nebraska and Murray following with an ace, the game was tied at 22. But after a Texas timeout, the Longhorns responded with an O’Neal block, a Skinner kill and Akana ace.
It was only the second time Nebraska lost an opening set.
Nebraska was up 10-7 in the second set when Texas called a timeout. The Longhorns came back and scored 11 straight. O’Neal, following a sideout kill by Wenaas, served four-straight aces. The Cornhuskers had to use both timeouts in the run. Swindel had back-to-back aces, giving Texas seven in the set.
Nebraska hit minus-0.036 with six kills and seven errors in the second set.
Texas never trailed in the final set and closed with an 11-1 run for the national championship.
___
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
