Morrison's Aggies ends torment by upsetting No. 7 Texas in Austin, 3-2
A hot time in Austin tonight.
On Wednesday evening, a capacity crowd of 4,576 at Gregory Gym witnessed something that hadn’t been done since 2001.
With a five-set victory over archrival and seventh-ranked Texas, Texas A&M ended a number of streaks.
The 3-2 win (25-27, 25-14, 23-25, 25-21, 18-16) is the Aggies first victory in Austin in 23 years. It’s ended an 11-match losing streak in the rivalry and simultaneously snapped the Longhorns’ coveted 79-match home heater.
Indeed, the nail-biting, gritty win for Jamie Morrison & Co. might have been the match of the year across college volleyball.
“My message was that we’re good enough to play in this moment,” Morrison said. “When we lost sets, it was a four- or five-point stretch where we didn’t play our volleyball, and when we played our game good things happened.”
Not only were the Ags good enough for the moment, they captured it.
And by doing so, the Aggies are now 14-4 overall and 5-3 in conference play.
After dropping a 3-1 decision on Sept. 27, the Aggies came into Wednesday’s affair looking for some revenge.
It was an all-out war from the beginning as the Longhorns won the opening frame 27-25. After Texas grabbed a 14-10 lead in the first, A&M responded by tying it at 14-14, with kills coming off the hands of junior opposite Logan Lednicky and junior outside hitter Taylor Humphrey.
Although Texas claimed the first stanza, A&M set the tone of always answering with Lednicky leading the charge.
A newly minted member of the 1,000-kill club, Lednicky finished with a match-high 23 in the winning effort.
Down 1-0, the Maroon & White delivered a dominant response in the second with a 25-14 win. The Ags started fast, and they were up 11-4 early, thanks to multiple errors by the Longhorns and more and more dominance by Lednicky.
Redshirt sophomore opposite Ital Lopuyo and junior middle blocker Ifenna Cos-Okpalla put the Aggies up 21-11, and Cos-Okpalla scored the final two points of the set with kills to even the match.
Finishing with 10 kills and four total blocks, Cos-Okpalla said that she knew deep down that the team was going to get the victory.
“I told them coming into this game today, ‘I have a feeling, and I’m never wrong with my feelings. We are going to win this game,’” Cos-Okpalla said. “I knew it.”
That belief would be put to the test in the final three sets.
The third was much like the first. While Texas ultimately won 25-23 to put A&M’s backs against the wall, the score remained tight throughout the period as the two sides traded blows.
With Texas up 23-20, senior outside hitter Madisen Skinner, who had 22 kills in this match, took over to claim the set.
Yet, as was the case all night, A&M staved off another crushing defeat.
Looking as if the Ags would again take a decisive set victory, Texas crawled back from a 19-12 deficit in the fourth with six straight Longhorns points to make it 19-18.
In yet another dogfight, Lednicky finally stopped the bleeding for the Ags, and two kills from Emily Hellmuth made it 22-20, and more Texas had A&M up 24-21 before Lednicky nailed the set down with yet another kill.
The craziness did not stop there as the fifth set was about as wild as volleyball gets.
After Texas took a 6-3 advantage in the race to 15, the Aggies went on a run of their own to get the lead right back at 7-6.
It was then knotted once again at 10-10, as Humphrey and Lopuyo committed attack errors of her own.
Texas went on a run again that had them up 13-10, but as Aggies know, “You’ve never seen ‘em quit.”
The Aggies scored three straight forged a tie, forcing the Longhorns to call a timeout.
A&M then fought off three Texas match-point opportunities as Cos-Okpalla scored to even the set at 16-16.
That is where the Maroon & White finally finished the job, as back-to-back Texas attack errors gave A&M a long-awaited victory.
With his team rushing the court once the final whistle was blown, the definition of a milestone victory for Morrison and his program had been won.
“Pride,” Morrison said. “I’m proud of the young women that we have on this team.”
An emotional Lednicky spoke to ESPNU after the game to highlight the complete team.
“I could cry. This means the world to me,” she said. “We put so much blood, sweat, and tears into this. My team behind me, they mean the world to me, and we just fought so hard for this win, and I’m so, so happy that we pulled it out tonight.”