Junior outside hitterClaire Chaussee amassed acareer-high 21kills and 10 digs and Louisville overcame a rough start to defeat San Diego 3-1 in theDivision I NCAA Volleyball Championship's second round, Thursday in Omaha.
The 11th-seeded Cardinalsmade a solid debut in the48-team tournament with the 14-25,25-23, 25-17, 29-27victory.Louisville (15-2) punched its ticket to the Sweet 16, where it faces No. 6 seed Washington (18-3) on Sunday at a time to be announced.
"It was a super hard-fought match by our team," U of L coach Dani Busboom Kelly said. "San Diego is really good so we were definitely expecting a battle and we got every minute of that battle we expected. One of the strengths of our team all year has been our depth, and we had to use that today."
U of L increased its winning streak to 11 but struggled mightilyat the start ofits first competition in 13 days.The unseeded but 21st-ranked Toreros (13-5) proved to be a staunch test on the heels of their3-0 tourney-opening win overTexas A&M-Corpus Christi.
Six-foot outside hitter Thana Fayad, a two-time All-West Coast Conference first team selection, starred in that 25-13, 25-15, 25-18 victory. The Toreros kept the momentum going against a Cards team that slogged through an error-riddled start after the bye that accompanied their seed.
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Kelly burned a timeout after the Toreros reeled off three straight points for a 6-2 lead, but Grace Frohling propelled San Diego with anace out of the timeout. The Toreros surged ahead 11-4. U of L never recovered.
As San Diego vaulted ahead 22-10 and benefited from Frohling's four kills and a block, U of L unraveled behind seven attack errors, two service errors and a negative hit percentage (-.077).
Kelly, the ACC coach of the year, attributed the slow start to a strong opponent, nerves and a unique pandemic-prompted bubble setting. U of L was limited to just 30 minutes of practice at 7 a.m. Wednesdayon the CHI Health Center Omaha court.
"At 7 a.m. in general, you don't get much out of it. And then when you're in a whole new arena and on a new court with weird backdrops, it's just a lot of different things going on that are out of the norm," Kelly said. "So I wasn't surprised we started out slow, but it went poorly in a hurry."
She said the Cards couldn't play much worse than they did in the opening set.
Louisville looked more like the nation's 13th-ranked team in a second set. The Cards hit .387 throughout and made a statement against the Toreros in a 8-5 start, studded byChaussee'sback-to-back kills and ACC Setter of the Year Tori Dilfer's timely assists.
"Going into this tournament, we all knew we could make a big run," Chaussee said. "For the people who started (the match),we had two players who had never seen what a tournament even looked like. So I wasn't surprised that we had some jitters. But coming into the game, I just wanted every ball. I didn't want the season to end."
The Toreros responded with a 6-1 run, including four straight points, forcing another U of L timeout.This time, Cards freshman outside hitter Anna DeBeer returned with a kill. Louisville executed a series of magnificent plays, including Amaya Tillman's solo block and back-to-back DeBeer kills, to stay in contention.
TheCards knotted the set at 20, precipitating a point-for-point battle that culminated in a ball-handling error by San Diego's Isadora Tercariol. U of L evened the match at 1-1 with the 25-23 set victory.
Part of the team's reversalcame from the inspired play of Chaussee, but also in Kelly's decision to leave Aiko Jones in the back row, where she started racking up kills. Jones didn't often remain in the back row during spring play.
"I think that gave us a ton of confidence that we were doing some things that maybe we haven't seen for a few months be successful. We knew the rest of our game would kind of follow along if those were going great," Kelly said.
It did.Chaussee continued to stymy the Toreros at the net in the third set. Eight of U of L's first 16points came via kills, including a DeBeer strike that gave theCardinals a 16-12 edge. Consecutive service aces by Alexis Hamilton cinched a 25-17 win and a2-1 match lead.
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U of Lled the nation and the ACC in blocks per set (3.25) entering the tournament. That attribute proved difficult for the Toreros to overcome, as the Cards amassed 11 blocks in the first three sets and 15overall.
The Toreros tried to forcea fifth set and tied the Cards at 24in the fourth. Louisville took the lead on a San Diego service error and appeared to be the victor after a Frohling kill was ruled out.Kelly said the call was so obvious - Frohling's kill was in- that the team didn't consider the 26-24 score final. Sure enough, the call was overturned and thescorewas restored to 25-all.
"No one even celebrated because we knew that the ball was in," Kelly said.
A Fayad kill pushed the Toreros ahead 26-25. Enter – who else? – Chaussee for a kill, and the teamsplayed to a dramatic 27-all tie. The Cards finished off their longest set of the season, and the match,with a Dilfer service ace and Jones block.
Tillman had a team-best nine blocks and DeBeer contributed 11 kills and eight digs in the victory.
Reach Shannon Russell atslrussell@gannett.com and follow on Twitter @slrussell.