Get on the Train
Recapping Texas volleyball’s first weekend of the 2025 season
Maybe Brittany and I are pessimists. Maybe we’ve been consistently beaten down by years of watching football and basketball crumble when presented with big opportunities. Perhaps we were too shy to buy into the hype this offseason after the messy 2024 campaign. Whatever the reason was, we are both eating some tasty, tasty crow today. Conservatively, Brittany and I agreed in our article last week that it’d be a successful trip if the Longhorns walked out with a 1-1 record after matches with the Creighton Bluejays and the host Wisconsin Badgers. Brittany took it a step further and predicted that it would take all five sets in both matches to get it done.
To put it bluntly: someone on the volleyball team heard we were talking shit.
Not only did Texas manage to win not just one but BOTH matches over the holiday weekend, but the Horns also broke out the brooms in each. And that’s not to say that Texas was flawless in both matches. Quite the opposite, in fact, which arguably is what makes the results so much more heartening. Being able to defeat quality opponents with sweeps while still seeing obvious areas for improvement means that the ceiling for this team is somewhere in Low Earth Orbit.
Rather than talk about the matches individually, let’s talk about the trends we saw out of the Longhorns across the weekend overall. What are the things Jerritt and the coaching staff need to help the team clean up? And what are the things Texas did well and can continue building on to take them to the next level? Let’s borrow the “red lights”, “yellow lights”, and “green lights” imagery from the Minister of Culture himself, Matthew McConaughey, to help us do it.
Red Lights
This section is reserved for the areas that are true pain points: things that I see as true areas of concern and could sink the season. This section should be read with the understanding that I’m sincerely frustrated by what items appear here. Ideally, this section will be devoid of conversation the vast majority of the time. And even when something does happen to appear here during an article, it will ideally find its way into the next section, “Yellow Lights”, by the next article.
As it just so happens, it’s hard to be too negative after sweeping your way through two top 12 opponents in your opening weekend, so there’s no causes for alarm at this juncture.
Yellow Lights
Let’s preface this section with the disclaimer that in no way is this meant to be hyper-critical. Many of these observations are likely nitpicky. Not a single one of them is meant to call for any heads or truly lament a failure by the team in any form. These are just areas that can be improved. Besides, this was the first weekend. No one in the country is anywhere near a finished product at this point. So what are the areas where Texas can still grow?
Attack Timing
This is the biggest spot for Texas to continue developing, and I don’t think it comes as much of a surprise. The internet is annoyingly at war with itself over whether Ella Swindle is a good setter (calm down, folks, she absolutely is), but with two freshmen and a transfer making up the vast majority of your pin-hitting and a first-time starter in one of the middle blocking roles, it is going to take time for the chemistry and timing between them and Ella to settle in. Texas hit only .186 against Creighton and got stuffed at the net 12 times. That’s very indicative of an offense that is still finding its groove, both on the setting and hitting ends of that equation. There were numerous instances of a set erroneously ending up on the wrong side of the net, or hitters having to wait on the ball to get to them before they could attack.
The good news with all of this is that we’ve already seen growth in this department just over the weekend. Texas hit a much more palatable .296 against Wisconsin and cut the blocks in half from the prior match. As the season wears on, Ella will get more comfortable, and the hitters will figure out their timing, allowing this Texas offense to really take off. Texas has weapons all over the floor with the line-up Jerritt put out there this weekend, so if this is the baseline performance for this team, watch out.
Service Line
I told you these observations would be nitpicky. I think there is work to be done for the Horns in the serving department. It certainly wasn’t a bad showing for Texas this weekend, but I think they can afford to be a bit more aggressive. Texas didn’t win the ace battle in either match (both teams had four in the Creighton match, while Texas only recorded one against Wisconsin), but they did dominate in service errors, recording only three against Creighton’s seven and four compared to Wisconsin’s eight. The lack of errors paired with the lack of aces tells me that the team has not been super aggressive from the line.
This may well be a strategic call from Coach Elliott: trusting that his team is simply strong enough to win the rallies to not need to risk handing opponents free points in the form of service errors. And if so, we won both matches, so touché. Further, Anja Kujundzic delivered 40% of Texas’ aces while only being utilized in a limited capacity as a serving specialist. This could just be a card the staff is choosing to keep close to the chest, giving the green light on aggressive serving only in more dire circumstances (AK’s aces both came during a run in the third set against Creighton when Texas trailed 12-6). Regardless, it will be interesting to see how potent the delivery from the service line proves to be as the season progresses.
Step on Their Throats
Texas does retain one annoying tendency from last year that showed up a couple times this weekend. Thankfully, the team has also shown the mental resilience to overcome it. In at least one set versus Creighton and one versus Wisconsin, Texas has gone on a run to open a huge lead, only for their opponent to fight back and make us sweat out the final few points of the set. I’d like to see more killer instinct. When you’re up by nine points more than halfway through the set, I don’t want to see that gap shrink by more than a couple points. Ebbs and flows are going to happen, but let’s try to keep the foot on the floorboard and not let opponents get up off the mat. My sanity will thank you, but my cardiologist will be disappointed in my making fewer trips to see them.
Green Lights
This is truly where the good stuff is happening. What are we jazzed on? What has us drinking the proverbial Kool-aid? What things that this team does make us wanna run through a brick wall?
Back Row Defense
Two words: HOT DAMN.
Emma Halter and Ramsey Gary are absolute freaks back there. Through the last two matches, it seemed like neither one was interested in ever seeing a ball hit the floor in-bounds. It almost seems criminal that only Emma got to be SEC Defensive Player of the Week last week because Ramsey also put on an absolute clinic against the Bluejays and Badgers. If you don’t get up on your feet screaming at the TV watching these two dive around the floor like feral animals and get absolutely everything up (with gorgeous passes to boot!), then you just ain’t L-I-V-I-N. This is without question the most confident I have felt in the back row for Texas since a baby freshman Halter was holding it down alongside Zoe Fleck in 2022. With Emma ALSO winning overall SEC Player of the Week honors, it seems the rest of the country is finally going to start waking up to what the Rock Baby Spice has been cooking her whole career in Austin.
Freshman Phenoms
There has been much said about the freshman class that the Texas coaching staff brought in
this season. Outside hitter Abby Vander Wal and opposite Cari Spears have already proven in the first two matches exactly why that is.
AVW managed to record ten kills in both matches as the OH2, providing a threat from that spot that we haven’t seen since Madi Skinner was OH2 behind Logan Eggleston in 2022. No more tipping over the block with Jenna Wenaas. The freshman has made clear that her intention is to whip every ball to the floor that gets sent her way. She has also contributed the highest receiving percentage of all the pin hitters on the roster so far.
Meanwhile, Cari Spears has been making hay from the right pin just as impressively, leading the team with 11 kills against Wisconsin to follow an eight kill performance against Creighton. Spears attacks the ball like she’s pissed at it. Everything she hits is an absolute nuke. On more than one occasion this past weekend, she hit through the block successfully. And her positional versatility has been a huge boon for the offense. She’s been scoring points from the right side at the net as well as the back row, both in the form of the BIC (middle back row attack) and D-ball (right back row attack). She leads all non-middles in hitting percentage so far this season.
The Transfer
Torrey Stafford has been as advertised and then some. The Pitt transfer has been playing six rotations and has been doing so more than reliably both on the attack and in her defending. She leads the Horns with 21 kills on the year with another 22 digs to her name, trailing only Emma Halter in that category. The back row consistency is also something that was unfortunately lacking for Madi Skinner at times in 2022. Being able to rely on her in the back row as a passer has undoubtedly also made life easier for the two freshmen to execute their responsibilities from the left and right pins. Having both her and Spears as options for the back row attack also adds a layer to the Texas offense that hasn’t been around in the last couple of years.
Offensive Variety
Through two matches, it has been awesome to see the Texas offense running through so many different options for how to attack the opponent. In years past, it has seemed as though the team lived or died based on how Madi or Logan was playing. If other players got involved, it was because Madi or Logan was playing on such a high level that other teams were having to focus on just stopping them, opening up hitting lanes for everyone else.
This year, we’ve seen the attack get distributed amongst several different arms. Torrey Stafford, Abby Vander Wal, Cari Spears, and Ayden Ames have all contributed double digit kills already this season. Knowing that there is a legitimate attacking threat in every area of the court makes it nearly impossible for opposing teams to defend every option Texas throws at them. You’ve figured out how to slow down Torrey Stafford? Great. What about the D-ball to Cari Spears? Or AVW? Or Ayden Ames on a slide? How do you intend to cover all of that while not undermining your efforts to stop Stafford? Pick your poison, baby.
Texas Swagger
I’ve written a few times about how I felt like Texas missed Asjia O’Neal’s passion on the floor a ton last season. While the general vibes around the team were still good, it seemed the Longhorns lacked someone with the loud, confident, borderline-cocky fire that fueled everything Asjia did. I also proposed that Ella Swindle was the one player on the team last year that could’ve mimicked it, and she was relegated to the bench for much of the season in favor of Averi Carlson at setter. I’m happy to report that it doesn’t seem like Texas lacks that swagger at all this season.
Not only has Ella Swindle been every ounce the vocal leader on the floor that I expected of her, but she’s been joined in that energy by several of her teammates. Cari Spears brings a similarly-passionate vibe onto the floor (perhaps a quality her and Asjia both get from being the children of professional athletes themselves). Torrey Stafford has been very in-your-face with the fiery attitude to hype up her teammates and keep everyone focused and excited. And in something of a surprise to me, it appears that Ayden Ames has been finding her voice as a leader on the team as well. Having multiple players with the bombastic personality on the floor not only inspires confidence for the fans - I would argue that there is something about it that is so uniquely Texas.
Next Up
Two matches this week for Texas volleyball including their debut match at the Moody Center!
Rice Owls - 6 PM CT tonight at Tudor Fieldhouse in Houston, TX (ESPN+)
#6 Stanford Cardinal - 12 PM CT on Sunday, 9/7 at Moody Center in Austin, TX (ESPN)
Read Brittany’s offseason preview of Rice and Stanford right here on Point Texas!