Their first loss of the season behind them, No. 2 Texas Longhorns blow out Texas Tech
There were no Wednesday woes for the Texas Longhorns this week.
Logan Eggleston had 13 kills while Molly Phillips recorded a .733 hitting percentage on her 15 swings in a 25-18, 25-7, 25-9 sweep over Texas Tech at Gregory Gym. The No. 2 Longhorns (16-1, 8-1 Big 12) have now won eight of their nine conference matches.
Wednesday's rout of the Red Raiders came one week after Texas suffered its first loss of the season, a five-set upset at Iowa State.
"It's not fun to lose," said Phillips, a junior opposite hitter. "I think that that does put a little fire under you. I think we took it and the last two games have performed at a high level."
Since that loss in Ames, Texas has responded with two straight sweeps. It's unlikely that either West Virginia (7-15, 0-9) or Texas Tech (14-8, 3-6) reaches the NCAA Tournament, but the Longhorns have still looked impressive in those wins. West Virginia failed to crack 20 points in any of its sets on Saturday, and against Texas Tech, the Longhorns trailed only twice, at the 1-0 and 2-1 marks in the second set.
Eggleston stacked up seven kills in the opening set, and the 25-7 blowout in the second set was Texas' largest margin of victory since a 25-7 set over Savannah State in 2015. The Longhorns scored the first seven points of Wednesday night's final set; Eggleston was given the rest of the night off after they had jumped out to an 11-3 lead.
As a team, Texas posted a .506 hitting percentage and committed just three attacking errors. Five Longhorns — Phillips, Asjia O'Neal (.571), Eggleston (.565), Madisen Skinner (.444) and Kayla Caffey (.375) — each individually hit over .300.
"We have so many options on the court," said setter Saige Ka'aha'aina-Torres, who distributed 32 assists. "It's nice to have so many options, but at the same time, it gets kind of hard sometimes because when everyone's doing well, who do you set? You want everyone to feel good. You want to give everybody the ball, but at the same time, we want to have a really efficient offense and we've kind of done a good job of getting ourselves in the system to be able to run that."
The loss to Iowa State cost Texas its spot atop the AVCA Top 25 poll. The Longhorns had held onto the No. 1 spot since the season's first weekend and they had been the nation's unanimous No. 1 for the past four weeks. Texas was No. 2 in this week's poll behind Nebraska, which was swept by No. 5 Wisconsin on Wednesday.
Throughout the season, the Longhorns have insisted that rankings don't matter.
"I think we don't really pay much attention to the rankings, honestly," Skinner said earlier this month. Before the season began, Eggleston declared that "the rankings really don't mean anything to us right now. It's not about where we start the season, it's about where we finish it."
It should be noted that of the last 10 national champions, only Stanford in 2018 was ranked first in the final regular-season poll. Ahead of its own run to the NCAA championship in 2012, Texas finished that regular season at No. 3.
"It really just matters where we end up at the end of the season," Phillips said. "It's always fun to be No. 1, obviously, but in the end, we're looking forward to (securing a top-four seed) and then down the road."
Next up on UT's schedule is a match at Kansas State on Friday. Head coach Jerritt Elliott said the short turnaround will give the Longhorns a chance to prepare for the NCAA Tournament.
"I told them this week that this is very similar to what the regional is going to be in a month. You're going to play one match, you're going to get a day off and we're going to play again," Elliott said. "This is that opportunity to kind of go through that routine. It's going to be a little bit more challenging for us because we jump on a plane tomorrow afternoon and have to take care of the routine on the road, but a great opportunity for us."
Notes: Texas Tech setters Ellie Baumert and Reese Rhodes did not play, and Elliott noted that "we took advantage of that." Tech's Alex Torres, a Hutto native, is a libero but led the Red Raiders with 10 assists; Tech hit .090 as a team. ... Texas' 10 aces tied a season high. ... Wednesday's match was played in front of an announced crowd 4,915.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Week after Iowa State loss, Texas volleyball sweeps Texas Tech
