LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – The KFC Yum Center hasn’t been that loud in years. It may still be ringing. The Louisville volleyball team looked like it might crack when a red-hot Oregon team blitzed it 25-13 to take a 2-1 lead in Saturday’s Elite Eight match.
But Louisville, true to the motto it adopted in the preseason after falling one game short of the NCAA championship game a year ago. Despite facing a match point in the fourth set, the team did not flinch.
The Cardinals fought back, won the fourth set 27-25, then stormed through the fifth 15-6 to earn the program’s second trip ever to volleyball’s Final Four, and the second in as many seasons.
They did it in front of 8,749 delirious fans that included the women’s basketball team, an ESPNU audience and Louisville volleyball community celebrating its sport – and some of its own – performing at the highest NCAA level.
One of them, Anna DeBeer, has fought back from a knee injury during the season, and fell on that knee during the fifth set, stopping the game. Trainers came out to check on her. But she would not come out of the game. The Assumption product let adrenaline take over, and when the regional was over, was named its Most Outstanding Player.
Anna DeBeer celebrates with teammates after being named the NCAA regional Most Outstanding Player.
When Aiko Jones put away a kill set up by Raquel Lazaro for the game-winner, Louisville’s players leapt into the air and embraced near the net, the rest of the team soon burying them in a storm of celebration.
It was a wave that was hard to envision after Oregon had wrestled away the second set to tie the match at one, then dominated the third by scoring its first eight points and running away.
Louisville hadn’t lost a set in the postseason, and now had lost back-to-back sets in a win-or-go-home situation. Louisville had been down this season and come back.
“But we hadn’t been against such a great team that was just offensively going off,” said Louisville coach Dani Busboom Kelly, who will return to her home state to make a second straight attempt at becoming the first woman to coach an NCAA volleyball champion. “I’m just proud that we were able to gut that fourth set out. . . . You know, our culture and our grit, I always think we can out-team, anybody. I thought that's what it came down to in game five, we just out teamed them.”
But after Game 3, that wasn’t a given. All the momentum was with Oregon. There was concern. You could feel it. Louisville opposite hitter Aiko Jones had another emotion.
“I was mad and excited at the same time,” Jones said. “I was mad that we were in that situation. But then closer to the end of that break between the fourth and the fifth, ‘I was like we're not winning that fourth just to come out here and lose the fifth. We win the fourth set, we're taking the game. And think we were all on the same page. . . . ‘We are not going out like this. Regardless of the outcome, we're not going out looking like chumps.’ Instead, we went out looking like studs.”
Louisville volleyball players look to rally themselves after falling down 2 sets to 1 in an NCAA regional final against Oregon.
DeBeer led Louisville with 17 kills and added 10 digs. Claire Chaussee added 13 kills and Jones had 12. Lazaro had 45 assists. The Cards turned to Ceci Rush and Ayden Bartlett for some successful service runs in the fifth set to seize momentum, and the match.
“I don't even have words for it,” DeBeer said. “I mean, it's definitely been a tough season. But I couldn't be more grateful for the support my teammates and coaches have had for me. And they're the ones who pushed me and even our trainers getting me back out on the floor and getting healthy again. I'm just extremely blessed. And to know that we have the opportunity to play a game again and had the chance to get to this regional, it was insane to me. It's been a dream ever since I was young. So, I really just have no words.”
“It's pretty emotional,” Busboom Kelly said. “And I don't know, I just feel like I give a lot of credit to our team. We just kind of show them the path and then they they're the ones that are performing and they're the ones that are out in the community. And they're the ones that these fans love so I don't know, I felt like I took so much from my playing career and it's really amazing to see these guys get the same thing and they earn it every single day. . . . I cannot believe this place, and to do it two years in a row at Freedom Hall and then at Yum! -- I don't know if six years ago I thought we'd ever do this -- and to do it twice in two different venues is incredible.”
And still, Busboom Kelly thinks she heads to the Final Four with a team that has more in the tank.
“I'm still waiting for us to peak,” she said. “I told him in the locker room that's it's really exciting to have the chance to do that in the Final Four and to get another match to keep getting better and a couple more days of practice to keep improving, because we were seeing things in practice and games that we haven't seen all year. Again, just to see us compete that hard and trust each other and just trust everybody on our bench, it was a really special moment. And to do that at home, I don't know if these guys realize just how rare that is and in front over 8000, the crowd was rocking and to experience that is so rare. I know they enjoyed it.”
And they’ll head to Omaha next week looking for more.
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