Volleyball brings momentum back from Nebraska
Sept. 29, 2009
AUSTIN, Texas -- Word spread like a fever, and people in Nebraska were adjusting to it like a nasty urban legend. As the Texas Volleyball team walked the streets of Lincoln last Saturday evening, locals walked up with wide eyes and open mouths. “They kept asking us, ‘Did you really just beat Nebraska?’” Sydney Yogi said. “No one beats Nebraska at Nebraska.” But the Longhorns did. The nation’s second-ranked volleyball team stormed out of the NU Coliseum by busting the Cornhuskers’ 82-match home winning streak with its first triumph in the building since 1988. The NU Coliseum boasts its own epic tradition. Nebraska has sold out 125-straight home matches, and that crowd provides a unique advantage. “You can’t hear yourself think,” Yogi says. “It gets loud -- the floor just shakes.” When the Longhorns started stretching their lead in the decisive fourth set, the volume went down considerably. “It was getting really quiet, and that felt amazing,” Yogi says. Now, UT brings the momentum back to Wednesday night’s State Farm Lone Star Showdown matchup against rival Texas A&M, but it’s an interesting momentum. Each of the Longhorns will tell you they struggled to find a rhythm against the Cornhuskers. Passes were off, sets were off and consequently, UT’s .232 hitting percentage was the team’s lowest since the first match of the season. And yet, the Longhorns found a way to win against their fourth top-10 opponent of the season. “That tells me a lot about our team,” head coach Jerritt Elliott says. “A win like that builds confidence. I challenged the team to look adversity in the eye and deal with the atmosphere.”
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