LOUISVILLE, Kentucky – Two teams that were "overdue" broke through Thursday night in the quarterfinals of League One Volleyball’s season-ending LOVB Finals.
Fifth-seeded LOVB Austin, which had lost its last four matches, won a block party – no, really, there were 43 blocks – that culminated in a reverse sweep of fourth-seeded LOVB Salt Lake.
"What a volleyball match," Austin coach Chris McGown said. "These are the things you dream of being a part of."
And then sixth-seeded LOVB Omaha, which had lost its last two and 11 of 12, hit .353 and ousted third-seeded LOVB Madison in four sets.
"Man, overdue. That's what it feels like," Omaha coach Suzie Fritz said. "Overdue just to put one together."
It sets up Friday's semifinals on ESPN2 and ESPN+ when Austin plays top-seeded LOVB Atlanta at 6:30 p.m. Eastern, followed by Omaha vs. second-seeded LOVB Houston at 9:30 p.m.
LOVB Austin pulls off reverse sweep
LOVB Austin knocked out LOVB Salt Lake 24-26, 24-26, 27-25, 25-23, 18-16 in as competitive a volleyball match as you will see.
Match stats | LOVB Austin roster | LOVB Salt Lake roster
"It wasn't pretty the whole time, for sure," said McGown, whose team had lost three five-setters in a row. "We had to be gritty through some ugly volleyball at times and in the end I told them, 'Hey, we found a way.' And I'm really proud of how hard they fought. What a great match by Salt Lake. They did everything they could to win, as well. Sometimes you get a little lucky and we came out on the right side."
Both teams grinded on offense thanks largely to block after block. Austin had 22, tying its LOVB best, while Salt Lake had 21, third-most by any team. At the end of one set, Austin was hitting .000 and Salt Lake City .118. At the end, Austin hit .180 with seven aces and seven serving errors and Salt Lake hit .138 with 11 aces and eight errors.
"I feel like I experienced every emotion under the sun in the past two hours," said Austin middle Molly McCage, who had 13 kills, hit .476, and. added an ace, six blocks, four digs and an assist. "The adversity. We've been here many, many times and we haven't come out on top. Tonight it was like, ‘we don't care about how ugly it is right now. We just need to find a way.’ And you could sense that in the timeouts. The bench was amazing. The whole team won this match. We needed every single person."
It was the first match in the inaugural season in which every set was decided by two points, which became a certainty when Austin rallied from a 14-11 fifth-set deficit to tie it 14.
It was tied at 15 and 16 before Logan Eggleston's kill gave her team the lead. On the ensuing play, teammate Chiaka Ogbogu went up and decided not to swing at an overpass but instead got it to setter Saige Ka'aha'aina-Torres, who set Logan again, and she ended the match with her 10th kill.
Madisen Skinner led Austin with 21 kills and had an ace, a block and 10 digs. Logan had her 10 kills and added four blocks, four digs and an assist. Chiaka, LOVB’s Middle Blocker of the Year, had seven kills and although she hit .000, had an ace, a dig and seven blocks. Alessia Gennari had seven kills, a block, six digs and an assist.
Saige had 47 assists, an ace, a block and 12 digs, and libero Kotoe Inoue had 12 digs and an assist.
"I love the fight our team showed the entire match," Chris said. "We were down 0-2 and I'm in the huddle and I'm looking at 'em and I could see it in their eyes. They weren't done yet and they were not giving up and they believed they could come back. And here we are."
Accordingly, Austin will be back in the KFC Yum! Center again Friday. Chris predicted they'd be back Saturday, too.
"We're gonna coach two more days," he declared. "I'm telling you right now."
The season ended, of course, for Salt Lake, which just the previous Saturday defeated Austin in five sets. Austin finished 5-11 in the regular season while Salt Lake was 7-9.
"It's heartbreaking for a lot of reasons, obviously, with the end of the season," Salt Lake coach Tama Miyashiro said. "When it came down to it and it mattered Austin was able to squeeze out a few more points. Not for the lack of battle, not for the lack of fight."
Skylar Fields, who had three kills in a row – her first of the match – to end the first set, led Salt Lake with 18 kills and had two blocks and 13 digs. She also had the set-winning kill in the second.
Roni Jones-Perry had 13 kills, four aces, a block and seven digs.
"That type of match is so fun to play in and it's one of the best feelings when you come out on top and it's really not the funnest when you don't," Roni said.
Haleigh Washington had eight kills, three aces, six blocks and three digs, and Tori Dixon had five kills and tied Austin's Ogbogu for blocking honors with seven.
Claire Hoffman had six kills, an ace and yearly bests of four blocks and 12 digs. Setter Jordyn Poulter had 45 assists, four kills in six errorless tries, three aces and 15 digs. LOVB Libero of the Year Manami Kojima finished her spectacular season with 18 digs and two assist.
"You can just think about the pendulum swings in that match in both directions," Jordyn said. "I think that's what makes it tough. Sadly that was the story for our team. Our highs were high and our lows were pretty low. This one just feels pretty hard."
Kubik-Banks, Larson lead LOVB Omaha
Outside hitter Madi Kubik-Banks had 18 kills and hit .350 and outside Jordan Larson had 14 kills and hit .303 – her best percentage of the season – as LOVB Omaha broke through with a 25-17, 18-25, 25-18, 25-21 victory LOVB Madison.
Match stats | LOVB Omaha roster | LOVB Madison roster
The middles were equally efficient as Emily Thater had 10 kills and hit .412 to go with a block and Sami Francis had eight kills in 19 errorless attacks and two blocks. Opposite Lauren Stivrins had eight kills – including the last two points of set three – with no errors in 15 attacks and two blocks.
"This is as healthy as we've been, it's probably as clean as we've played, and .353 offensive effort for us is firing on all cylinders," Fritz said. "We were great everywhere. Our lefts hit over .300, our middles hit over .400, I thought Stivrins coming in made a difference.
"If you can combine that kind of offensive production with the way we're capable of ballhandling, then we can be really hard to beat."
She smiled.
"And the timing couldn't have been better."
Omaha, which had just one ace – by Madi – and seven serving errors. Setter Laura Dijkema had 43 assists, a kill on her only attempt, a block and 14 digs. Libero Justine Wong-Orantes had 18 digs and five assists.
Madison hit .223 and had three aces and four errors.
"Omaha played an excellent match," Madison coach Matt Fuerbringer said. "Jordan hit really well and Justine Wong dug every ball possible and they showed the high level they can play at."
Omaha finished the regular season 5-11 while Madison was 8-8.
As she has most of the season, Annie Drews Schumacher led Madison, this time with 17 kills to go with a block, 12 digs and an assist. She had seven kills in the fourth set.
"A player like Annie Drews is gonna get hers and she definitely did, but I think we weathered the storm throughout the whole match," Justine said.
"I really feel like we extracted just about everything we had out of what we had," Annie said.
Jennifer Janiska had 11 kills for Madison to go with two aces, two blocks, 14 digs and an assist. Sarah Franklin had seven kills and Claire Chaussee, who played at Louisville where she was the ACC player of the year in 2022, had six kills with no errors in 17 swings.
Lauren Carlini, LOVB’s Setter of the Year, had a kill in five errorless tries, 46 assists, three blocks and seven digs.
"I think it speaks to the level of this league. A five-set match before, a barnburner, and then another one with us going four," Lauren said. "Of course we wanted to win that but it can be any team on any night."
