Texas volleyball team springs ahead after championship season
The queens of college volleyball returned to their court Wednesday for the first time since winning the program’s fourth national championship in December, and the crowd at Gregory Gymnasium proved more than ready for a coronation.
Super fan Jack Mattox showed up with his Bevo cowboy hat, burnt-orange cooking apron and dozens of his friends. Several students wore shorts, sneakers and not much else while spelling out “Texas” on their chests. Hundreds of other loyal Longhorn backers flocked to the free spring game against Baylor in the heart of the Texas campus to welcome the UT volleyball team home after a memorable 2022 season.
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“It's awesome to be back,” said Madisen Skinner, a junior outside hitter from Katy who played a critical role in last season’s title run. “I feel like we have the best fan base in the country that is going to support us no matter what. They’re always showing up loud and excited, rooting for us.”
Head coach Jerritt Elliott, who has now won two national titles in his 22 years at Texas, agreed with Skinner about the crowd support. The match felt like the fall, he said, especially since the Longhorns were facing off against one of their top Big 12 foes in Baylor.
“Our fan base is great — and they’re loud,” he said. “I was super excited about being back here.”
Despite the festive crowd, Elliott treated the five-set match against the Bears as a day at the office for a Texas team that needs to address some business after suffering some offseason losses. Who will take over for Saige Ka'aha'aina-Torres at setter? Which player will emerge as the starting libero? And how will the Horns replace all-everything Logan Eggleston, last year’s American Volleyball Coaches Association Division 1 National Player of the Year, who’s now playing professionally for Turkish powerhouse Galatasary?
Texas had plenty of answers against Baylor, a worthy spring foe that went 25-7 in 2022, finished second behind 28-1 Texas in the Big 12 and reached the NCAA regionals. For the record, Texas won the first four sets 25-21, 25-10, 25-20, 25-23 before dropping the fifth set 15-10. The usual suspects delivered against Baylor, with Skinner — who ranked second on the 2022 team in kills — pacing the squad with 18 kills through the first three sets. Returning sixth-year senior Asjia O’Neal showed why she is arguably the top defensive middle blocker in the nation with seven blocks.
“Asjia, what she did in those first few (sets) was phenomenal,” Elliott said. “That’s the best I've seen her. And, obviously, Maddie (Skinner) put up some big numbers for us. Overall, I really liked what I saw, especially on the defensive end.”
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Elliott said the returners as well as the new faces should keep the program rolling come the regular season in the fall, even without Eggleston, Ka'aha'aina-Torres and several other key contributors from last season.
“They were a big part of (2022), and they left this program better than they found it,” he said. “They’ll keep watching from afar. But we have a lot of great players coming back. Every year, you have different personalities and strengths; every year, you have to find your superpowers.”
Freshman passes first test before home crowd
Texas might have found its next supersetter, based on the performance of 6-foot-3 freshman Ella Swindle. A prep All-American from Missouri who also competes in the U.S. national program, Swindle enrolled early at Texas in hopes of improving her chances for immediate playing time. She started against Baylor and had 32 assists in four sets.
More important, said her new teammates, Swindle showed poise under the pressure of performing for the first time before the home crowd.
“She did a really good job,” O’Neal said. “She's very dialed in all the time because she has a really good, calm demeanor. I think she's been very confident, and that’s hard to be. I mean, she's an early enrollee from high school, and she's coming in and setting for a team that just won a natty, so obviously expectations are really high. But I think she handles the pressure really, really well.”
Skinner agreed with O’Neal, saying Swindle has been “open for feedback” all spring.
“She's super composed and consistent,” Skinner said. “It’s hard coming in and having 12-plus girls that want different sets and need different things from her, but she's worked super hard.”
New OH getting into swing of things
Swindle wasn’t the only new face in the starting rotation. Outside hitter Jenna Wenaas, a junior transfer from Minnesota and a native of Frisco in the Dallas area, joined Swindle, Skinner, O’Neal, Molly Phillips and Bella Bergmark in the starting lineup. Wenaas had 10 kills on 25 swings, and Elliott hopes the newcomer can form a potent duo with Skinner on the outside.
“We're looking at different ways to score for Jenna,” he said. “I think she's doing a really nice job right now. It's a nice one-two punch for us with those outside hitters.”
The Longhorns’ team leaders have also helped Wenaas, Swindle and the other new faces adapt to the program’s lofty goals.
“It's the same culture and the same expectation that we have every single year,” said Skinner, herself a transfer before last season. “So, I mean, the newbies have been super good at just kind of reaching our standards and really impressing us these last couple weeks.”
O’Neal, one of the most experienced players in the nation, said having that “established culture” helps the newcomers quickly adapt to playing for the national champions.
“I think because we have upperclassmen that hold that standard really high, it's easy for people to come in and see what the expectations are and just follow through with it like Maddie last year,” she said. “We’ve all just meshed well together. There wasn't a sit-down meeting where we're, like, we need to do X, Y and Z. Everyone's just very much on the same page.”
The Longhorns will have one more chance to be on the same page when they play their fourth and final spring game next Wednesday against Athletes Unlimited. They’ll then finish up spring workouts and take a small break before preparation for the 2023 season in August.
“We’re just trying to make sure they're in a good frame emotionally,” Elliott said. “They have to get prepared to go, but they also need to find time to get a break because there's a lot of emotions that go with that national championship run. People will be coming after you.”
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: New faces helping Texas volleyball team spring ahead after winning title
