Austin, Omaha into LOVB Finals title match with two more reverse sweeps
By Lee Feinswog for League One Volleyball
Louisville, Kentucky – Conventional volleyball logic was thrown completely out the KFC Yum! Center window Friday.
Two more reverse sweeps, making it three of the first four matches in the LOVB Finals?
“Nuts,” Omaha coach Suzie Fritz said.Â
The No. 5 and No. 6 seeds playing for the title?
“Nuts. Nuts,” she said.
LOVB Austin and LOVB Omaha both finished the League One Volleyball regular season with 5-11 records, eight games behind top-seeded LOVB Atlanta and five games behind second-seeded LOVB Houston.
No matter, because Friday the ESPN2 audience got its money’s worth as fifth-seeded Austin lost the first two sets to Atlanta and came back to win 21-25, 15-25, 25-22, 25-10, 16-14.Â
And then sixth-seeded Omaha lost the first two sets and came back to scratch out a 15-25, 24-26, 25-23, 25-23, 15-12 victory.
Now they’ll play for the inaugural LOVB Finals title at 3 p.m. CT, Sunday, April 13, on ESPN2 in a match you simply could not have fathomed heading into this tournament. But Thursday, Austin opened play with a reverse sweep of fourth-seeded Salt Lake and then Omaha upset third-seeded Madison in four sets.Â
“I think the league early on wanted to see some parity. They built the teams as such and we felt that all year long,” said coach Suzie, whose team had lost 11 of 12 matches heading into this tournament but started the postseason with a clean slate. “Every match was gnarly.”
Austin coach Chris McGown, who took over the team in midseason, said simply, “These guys are unreal.’
Nuts. Gnarly. Unreal.Â
No arguments here.
Omaha continues stunning comeback
Omaha got overpowered in the first set, was so close to winning the second, and then made the plays when it had to win the last three sets.
Match stats | LOVB Omaha roster | LOVB Houston roster
“I never even looked at the score because we just needed to focus on every rally,” said Kimberly Drewniok, who led Omaha with 17 kills and five digs. “The level (of play) is so similar and we had to fight for every point … for me, I didn’t believe until the last point that we were going to win this match.”
Jordan Larson had 11 kills and was especially effective in the fourth set, when she had five kills with one error in 12 attacks. She added two blocks, 13 digs and three assists. Sami Francis, the Stanford student who was playing in her seventh match, had nine kills, an ace, six blocks and four digs. Lauren Stivrins had nine kills, including the match winner, to go with three blocks and two digs. Emily Thater had seven kills, two aces, five blocks and three digs.
And Jaali Winters, getting the start at outside in place of injured Madi Kubik-Banks, had seven kills, an ace, an assist and a match-high 22 digs. Kubik-Banks led the team on Thursday with 18 kills while hitting .350.
“We needed Jaali to go do Jaali things,” coach Suzie said. “Jaali is probably our hardest worker and maybe one of our most competitive. And she’s just freaking cool. She’s been frustrated about her role lately but Kubik-Banks was playing great and you’ve got Larson. We didn’t have Madi tonight and we needed Jaali to be great and you knew she was going to step up.”
Omaha hit .193 and had five aces with only three errors. Laura Dijkema had 36 assists, a kill and four digs, and Gabby Blossom had 15 assists, an ace and four digs.
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