Texas A&M celebrity Logan Lednicky didn’t even look ahead to the roar to peak when the ball hit the ground in final season’s NCAA Ladies’s Volleyball Championship sport on the T-Cell Middle. She instantly grabbed teammate Ava Underwood, lifted her clear off the court docket, and someplace within the cacophony of maroon and white that’s spilled throughout the ground in Kansas Metropolis, the Aggies’ 128 years of volleyball historical past and not using a nationwide championship stop to exist.
Texas A&M’s Maiden Crown
Kentucky by no means discovered a solution. Three units, three scientific statements — 26-24, 25-15, 25-18 — and the Aggies, a No. 3 seed who had simply defeated three No. 1 seeds throughout their match run, are nationwide champions for the primary time in historical past. Simply reaching the quarterfinals for the primary time in 1 / 4 of a century was, in itself, an achievement. Then got here a first-ever semifinal, a first-ever remaining, and finally, a maiden championship.
Jamie Morrison stood courtside — “nonetheless speechless,” he would inform reporters moments later — changing into solely the third coach in NCAA historical past to win a nationwide volleyball title in his first three years as a head coach. Now, although, the Texas A&M head coach has arguably an much more tough process forward of him: Defending the crown. And on-line betting websites will probably be aware of the second mountain that lies in wait.
Final season, on-line crypto betting websites made the Aggies the +450 longshot when it got here to the Remaining 4, however they’d upset the chances to assert the crown. Subsequent season, they’ll doubtless be unfancied as soon as once more. However as these 4 groups have confirmed throughout the final 20 years, defending the title isn’t inconceivable.
Texas: The Sweep Dynasty
Logan Eggleston spent 4 years grinding for a Texas program that was alleged to win nationwide championships and stored arriving on the doorstep with out ending the job. In December 2022, she determined to kick the door down herself.
Nineteen kills. AVCA Nationwide Participant of the Yr. Event Most Excellent Participant. The Longhorns swept Louisville 25-22, 25-14, 26-24, and Eggleston — with setter Saige Ka’aha’aina-Torres feeding her like they shared a non-public language and libero Zoe Fleck protecting all the pieces alive behind them — was merely unchallengeable. Jerritt Elliott’s program, dormant since 2012, had lastly arrived again on the summit.
One yr later, they have been even higher. Texas returned as a No. 5 seed to face top-ranked Nebraska in Tampa, and what adopted in entrance of 1000’s of followers — the most important crowd ever to attend an indoor volleyball match — was some of the jaw-dropping performances in NCAA championship historical past.
Asjia O’Neal served. And served. And served once more. 4 consecutive aces within the second set that broke Nebraska’s collective perception earlier than the Huskers may exhale. Twelve service aces throughout all the match, a championship file that underlined one thing Elliott understood about this program: the depth ran thus far down the roster that even with Eggleston gone and a freshman setter in Ella Swindle entering into probably the most pressurized place on court docket, Texas by no means flinched. Remaining scores: 25-22, 25-14, 25-11. The primary program in NCAA historical past to win back-to-back titles through sweep.
Stanford: The Plummer Period
Was the Kathryn Plummer-era Stanford dynasty probably the most full of the fashionable period? Right here’s the proof.
The 2018 remaining in opposition to Nebraska in Minneapolis was 5 units of chaos — 28-26, 22-25, 25-16, 15-25, 15-12 — with Stanford claiming this system’s file eighth title on a Meghan McClure backrow kill that despatched the Cardinal bench into delirium. Kevin Hambly’s group had survived each momentum swing, each Nebraska run, each second when it felt just like the match might be stolen away. Setter Jenna Grey orchestrated all through with the composure of somebody twice her age, the proper conductor for an offence constructed to endure.
Twelve months later, Plummer closed her school profession with 22 kills in opposition to Wisconsin in a 25-16, 25-17, 25-20 sweep that introduced one thing about how dynasties mature. The chaos of 2018 had been changed by command. The thriller had given approach to dominance. Plummer — a two-time AVCA Participant of the Yr, arguably probably the most full exterior hitter in school volleyball historical past — was in all places in that remaining, the type of efficiency that makes a sell-out enviornment really feel prefer it’s watching historical past in actual time. A ninth title for Stanford. Third in 4 years.
Penn State: Dynasty Inside a Dynasty
No. 2 seed Penn State walked into Seattle in 2013 with a program that shouldn’t have had a dynasty — the celebrities from earlier cycles have been gone; the core was new — however Micha Hancock made that irrelevant. Forty-eight assists within the championship remaining in opposition to Wisconsin. Learn that quantity the way in which it deserves to be learn: 48 assists throughout 4 units. Ariel Scott led with 21 kills, Megan Courtney added 20, and Dominique Gonzalez added 20 extra. Russ Rose’s program gained 34 of 36 matches that season. Sixth title at school historical past claimed with aplomb.
The 2014 run as a No. 5 seed was much more audacious. Penn State beat top-ranked Stanford within the nationwide semifinals — a program beating the machine that had simply crushed everybody else — and swept BYU 25-21, 26-24, 25-14 in Oklahoma Metropolis for a file seventh nationwide championship. Hancock gained the AVCA Nationwide Participant of the Yr. Again-to-back. Rose’s genius wasn’t any single participant — it was a tradition so deeply encoded into this system’s DNA that it produced similar outcomes with totally totally different personnel.
The Gold Normal
109 consecutive match wins. That’s what those self same Nittany Lions amassed between 2007 and 2010. No dynasty within the historical past of NCAA ladies’s volleyball comes anyplace near Penn State’s famed four-peat, as soon as once more below Rose.
They began their run in Sacramento in 2007 with a five-set thriller over Stanford after which turned one thing the game had by no means seen and hasn’t seen since — going 38-0 in 2008, then 38-0 once more in 2009. Two consecutive excellent seasons. 100 and 9 straight match wins. 100 and eleven consecutive set victories. A cumulative four-year file of 142-7. The very definition of championship tradition working with out ego or compromise.
Exterior hitter Megan Hodge was the dynasty’s dominant drive, however this wasn’t a one-player program. Setter Alisha Glass, a two-time All-American, constructed the offence from a place of quiet authority; Blair Brown supplied relentless firepower. And when these gamers graduated, Rose reloaded with out ever rebuilding — the identical tradition, the identical customary, the identical consequence. How? That’s the query opposing coaches spent 4 years attempting to reply. None of them may.