Pittsburgh arrived at the NCAA Volleyball Tournament in Louisville as the most feared team in the country. Ranked No. 1, with a 33-1 record, with three candidates for the sport’s player of the year honors. A team that had defeated the University of Louisville five straight times. Numerous reasons for UofL fans to be concerned, time seemingly ripe for an exit from the big stage.
More than 21,700 on hand at the KFC Yum! Center, the big stage, indeed. All-time record attendance for the NCAA semifinals and for a volleyball match in Louisville. They don’t come any bigger, unless it’s a national championship game, which just happens to be straight ahead.
No one on the Louisville volleyball team was quite ready to leave. The bigger they are the harder they fall. Nothing short of a victory would satisfy these Cardinals. UofL would defeat Pittsburgh 3-1 in the match that ultimately mattered, with scores of 21-25, 25-23, 29-27, 25-17.
The Cardinals would not only prevail, but they would get stronger, even after their All-American outside hitter Anna DeBeer crumbled to the floor in the fourth set. Having landed on the foot of a teammate, she would be unable to finish the match. Her teammates would just dial up the intensity, refusing to wilt, refusing to go away, turning on the heat and pushing Pittsburgh out of the tournament. This is the third straight season that the UofL and Pitt have met in the NCAA tournament, Pitt taking the matchup 3-2 in 2023, and Louisville on top 3-2 in 2022.
Anna’s status for Sunday’s championship match has not been announced but it would be impossible to envision a championship game without her. Who’s going to convince her she is not capable of playing for everything she had dream of for the past five years?
Three Louisville players had 14 kills on the night, all outside hitters — DeBeer, Charitie Luper and Sofia Maldonado Diaz. Each player also had at least one block, with DeBeer stuffing three and Maldonado Diaz and Luper with one apiece. Not to be outdone, Pittsburgh’s Olivia Babcock had an unbelievable 33 kills in the four sets.
“Incredible match tonight. Pitt’s an exceptional team, and they have players that you can do everything right and they still can take over the game,” said Busboom Kelly. “I was just so proud of the way our team played and battled and stuck with what we’d worked on this entire week, Just the amount of trust we showed, not only in the team, but in ourselves, was pretty incredible.
“It just felt like everybody was so dialed in, we could have put anybody in and had the same outcome. Super proud and a really unbelievable performance against maybe the best team in the country.”
