Missed Month
Catching up on all the Texas volleyball news over the last four weeks
Sorry for the absence. While I’ve technically only missed one article from my agreed-upon schedule, it feels like a lot more since it means that nearly a full month has passed since my last literary masterpiece. Life in Colorado means that when you get invited to a mid-week wedding in the mountains by friends of your fiancee’s family, it means you take the excuse to go skiing when the slopes aren’t crowded even though the snow is complete dogshit this season. Seriously, why does the Ice Coast have better conditions than my resorts of choice?
Regardless, I committed to a schedule, and I didn’t meet it, other people’s nuptials or not. My bad. We got a bit of stuff to catch up on: spring practice is in full swing (pun intended), Texas announced another big neutral-site OOC matchup for this fall, and beach volleyball has been off to a hot start over the first few weekends of the season . Let’s take a quick dip into a pool of volley-knowledge.
Spring Practice
Volleyball spring practice isn’t a playground of “nuggs” the way football spring practice is at the University of Texas. No doubt, this is a symptom of the fact that football is a much bigger deal at Texas - no shit, Sherlock - but it’s also the result of Jerritt Elliott and his staff keeping their cards much closer to their chest. There’s a strategic vision to it, but I think it really boils down to the simple fact that Jerritt does everything in his power to avoid having to deal with local media in the form of press conferences whenever he can. Outside of the national tournament last season, he made an appearance at a podium to talk about his team all of maybe twice? Meanwhile, the football coaches are getting to stand up in front of the gaggle of goobers who work the football beat seemingly twice per hour.
Anyway, spring practice is where the real work happens. It also offers an opportunity to experiment a bit. Do the rumblings of middle blocker Addy Gaido have legs? Do Cari Spears or Taylor Harvey have some new juice that could change up the service pressure from the team? What new tricks is AVW working on for her game? What combination of players on the court provides the most lethal all-around game for the Longhorns?
But even beyond that, the extended hours in the practice gym and in the weight room are where the culture gets instilled and the camaraderie between teammates grows. That’s all especially critical when it comes to integrating the freshmen into the mix. Henley Anderson, Emma Cugino, and Genevieve Harris will benefit greatly from this time with the team regardless of how much each of them does or does not play this fall.
To really make for a thrilling offseason for the team, Texas sent exactly half of its current roster to Colorado Springs last month to participate in USA Volleyball’s national team collegiate training session. The full list of Texas’ participants is below:
Fr OH Henley Anderson
Fr S Genevieve Harris
So MB Taylor Harvey
So OPP Cari Spears
So OH Abby Vander Wal
Sr L Ramsey Gary
Sr OH Torrey Stafford
Additionally, Texas made its announcement of the spring schedule during my dereliction of duties. The ladies will be heading to Houston for the college invitational at the FAST Complex on March 28th with another trip southeast to face the Houston Cougars one week later. Texas closes out the schedule with TCU on April 11th and Rice on April 17th, both in Austin. Since Texas tends to not put their spring matches on TV nor really report stats, I will do my best to figure out how to cover that.
Broadway Block Party
It might have been a center-cut meatball, but a lot of marketing teams aren’t brave enough to just take a big hack and send it 15 rows back. They easily could’ve overthought it or let Sprouts Farmers Market (the title sponsor of the event) try to force a pun with their own brand name into it, but instead they were able to lock in “Broadway Block Party”.
Anyway, the news is - as the image above shows - that Texas will be facing Louisville in a neutral site match for the second time in as many years in Nashville, TN. The Horns took down the Cardinals in a five-set thriller in Fort Worth as part of the Shriners Children’s Showdown at the Net last September as the most recent entry in the six-match history between the two programs (Texas leads 5-1 including a sweep victory for the 2022 national title).
As a dual-fall-sport fan of the University of Texas, the timing works out rather well: a Labor Day trip to Nashville lines up with football’s season opener which fortunately only sees the Texas State Bobcats come to Austin, an easy skip in favor of the Ohio State game one week later. For extra volleyball content, Tennessee and Indiana will also be participating in the Block Party the same day at Bridgestone Arena.
Beachy Keen
Texas has started the beach season off hot. Participants in the Outrigger Duke Kahanamoku Beach Classic to start the year, Texas defeated four teams who are currently ranked in the top 12 nationally: now-#3 USC (3-2), #9 Loyola Marymount (3-2), #10 Cal (3-2), and host #13 Hawaii (3-2). Texas did fall to their other two opponents - #1 UCLA (0-5) and #2 Stanford (2-3) - giving them a great measuring stick for how far behind the class of the country they are to start the year. The good news is that despite the sweep by Coach Stein Metzger’s old program, Texas is not far off.
The Sandhorns (again, patent pending on the name) followed that showing with four matches at the MPSF Mid-Season Rumble in Los Angeles. Texas swept their way through unranked Oregon, #17 Grand Canyon, and #18 Washington while dropping their rematch with #2 Stanford (again by a 2-3 score).
The ladies head to Manhattan Beach, CA this weekend for the East Meets West Invitational for four matches against familiar faces. They’ll see Hawaii, Loyola Marymount, UCLA, and California again on the trip. The following weekend will introduce a couple new opponents in #8 Arizona State and Boise State (who is receiving votes!) as part of the Death Volley Invitational in Baton Rouge, LA. Texas will also get repeat opponents in Grand Canyon and Cal (for the third time!) during that event.
Texas enters the weekend ranked #5 in the country by the AVCA Collegiate Beach poll.