Rubber Match
#2 Texas volleyball reaches the toughest stretch of the SEC schedule
In baseball terminology, the “rubber match” is the decisive, winner-take-all game in a multi-game series. The term itself far pre-dates its use for baseball, but for the purposes of this article, the baseball reference will have to do. Plus we’re deep in the heart of the 2025 edition of the World Series, so baseball references should be en vogue anyway.
This weekend effectively functions as the “rubber match” for Texas with regards to their chances to win the SEC regular season championship. As last week’s telecasts reminded us, the Longhorns stand alongside #1 Nebraska as the only undefeated teams left in Division I volleyball with no other teams remaining that even have only one loss. However, Texas is not the lone undefeated team in the Southeastern Conference schedule - they are joined by the Kentucky Wildcats in possessing a goose egg in the conference losses column.
With the matches with Texas A&M on Friday in College Station and Sunday at home at Gregory Gym against Kentucky, the SEC will all but know for sure who will become the 2025 regular season champions of the conference. The Aggies and Wildcats have already played each other this season with A&M coming out on the losing end of the tilt. As a result, Texas and Kentucky control their destiny this weekend while Texas A&M ironically enough does need to root for Texas on Sunday if they manage to upset the Horns on Halloween night.
This isn’t the toughest stretch on the whole calendar, but it is the apex point of the season. Get through the weekend unscathed, and Texas can effectively guarantee the regular season crown and #1 seed in the SEC tournament are theirs. And while this is a critical moment in the season for the team to accomplish its preseason goals, this isn’t a moment that they are unprepared for. These are the moments where Jerritt’s non-conference scheduling pays off. The Longhorns aren’t intimidated by these types of matches but instead thrive with the opportunities.
Those of you poor unfortunate souls who also subject yourselves to the madness that is 2025 Texas football will be no strangers to the stress that this weekend will bring for volleyball. Let’s see where Texas stands as a team heading into the pivotal weekend on the calendar.
Red Lights
LSU’s Commentary Crew
While ESPN usually puts their back into it for games on the full-blown SEC Network on linear cable, SEC Network+ is another story. The streaming-only alternate broadcasts typically end up with more locally-staffed and locally-produced presentations with the SEC Network graphics package on top of it. Best case scenario, it means that you’ll have a commentary crew that is more than a little bit tilted in favor of the home team. Texas is no exception to this, as we can’t even begin to pretend that there’s not a bit of a conflict of interest in having Zoe Jarvis (nee Fleck) or Logan Eggleston on color commentary for a match at Gregory Gym. The crew that was rolled out by LSU and ESPN on Sunday was downright embarrassing compared to that, however.
Volleyball is not a slow sport, so there is a lot going on for a commentator to track, but the play-by-play announcer - I believe it was Patrick Wright - was horrifyingly bad to the point of being unintentionally hilarious. It was clear very early on in the match that this man put in exactly 0.0 seconds worth of prep work before the match as he repeatedly confused players on the court; LSU’s Jurnee Robinson and Nia Washington were often swapped as were Abby Vander Wal and Cari Spears on the Texas side, two players who could not look any more different physically unless either one sprouted a fifth limb. He also was clueless about what constituted a “pancake”, misused volleyball terminology with regularity (it isn’t a block if it goes out-of-bounds, amigo), and was generally wildly unfamiliar with who was on the court or what was happening. What do you mean you couldn’t tell who it was from Texas that saved that ball? The dark-haired short girl who has been paying rent on SportsCenter because she’s been living on the Top 10 countdown after every match making insane defensive saves each week? My brother in Christ, could you not piece that one together in your mind?
Probably the most egregious was his proud declaration that “this three point lead is the largest in the match thus far” during the third set, disregarding entirely that the second set ended with a four point margin of victory in Texas’ favor. The color commentator, lifetime Longhorn and 1981 volleyball national champion Fran Flory, was hung out to dry, trying her absolute damnedest to (I assume) not smack him right across the face and take over the whole job on her own. Honestly, I would be stunned if this man had ever watched a single set of volleyball in his entire life. I’ve never commentated for a live sport of any kind in my existence and am confident that I could’ve sounded like more of a subject matter expert than this alleged professional. He was the commentary equivalent of crashing a red-lining 2009 Toyota Camry into a light pole in the parking lot of an abandoned strip mall. Fire him into the sun with prejudice.
In case that wasn’t bad enough, LSU also was incapable of providing a separate video feed for the match, instead opting to just piggyback on the feed for the video board in the arena. The result was instances of crowd shots where we were also shown the lyrics to the “stadium karaoke” segment between sets simultaneously as well as basically zero replays of exciting plays including those that were under review due to a coach’s challenge. While not having cuts to “commercial” at any point during the match was nice, it was a little bit frustrating as a fan to not get to see any of the cool plays or even questionable ones at any point during the breaks.
Yellow Lights
Blocking
We continue to ride the roller coaster of the Texas block this season. What looked promising just a couple weeks ago with the Tennessee, Alabama, and Arkansas matches appears to have returned to Earth just in time to catch up with our regularly scheduled programming. What seems to be standard for Texas this season is to anticipate roughly two blocks per set with matches operating well above that number being an apparent aberration. As a result, Texas is being regularly outblocked by their opponents, recording 30 fewer total blocks over the course of this season.
The Texas staff is adamant that the lower block numbers are showing up in less-appreciated areas of the box score. To their credit, Texas has outdug their opponent in nearly every single match, recording 913 digs (14.27 per set) against only 742 (11.59) for the year. Leaning into the defensive and backrow strength of the team has to this point paid dividends with Texas obviously still being undefeated and only having been pushed to a fifth set three times in 18 matches and only four other instances of not being a sweep entirely.
With the lethal offenses they’ll be facing in A&M and Kentucky, it would be nice to see the block return in a big way. It feels unsustainable to say that Emma Halter and Ramsey Gary should shoulder the burden of keeping every ball off the floor. We need to be able to steal momentum or shut down comeback efforts with a big block to smother our opponents’ offenses, especially ones with the ability to close deficits quickly like both the Aggies and Wildcats can.
Service Errors
Hard to believe that since we first put concerns about the Longhorns at the service line in the yellow lights section, the problem only seems to have exacerbated. While our early season consternation was mostly driven by a lack of aggressive serving resulting in few if any aces, we’ve now seen the script flip such that the serving is so aggressive that the Longhorns are collecting service errors like they are Pokemon cards in an early-00s American elementary school.
It seems as though we pulled back against LSU, at least in terms of generating service errors. For the match with the Tigers, Texas committed only six errors from the service line, a stark contrast from the five previous matches where they averaged more than 13 per match. Service pressure is a huge part of making life difficult for your opponent’s offense and thus stringing together points of your own, but giving away points with unforced errors also keeps teams in sets they shouldn’t be. Alabama took a set off of Texas in no small part due to the issues Texas had with simply putting the ball in play from the service line.
This is a double-edged sword, however, as Texas’ offense forces opposing teams to be far more aggressive when serving the ball. Despite our complaints here, Texas has generated more aces and fewer service errors than their opponents over the course of the season. This is in no small part due to the fact that opponents feel they have to challenge Texas from the line, and Texas has the back row defense and comfort with pin hitters receiving the ball to be happy to oblige them. Texas also commits service errors at a lower rate than their next two opponents (2.19/set for Texas, 2.25 for Kentucky, and 2.94 for A&M) and is comparable or better in service ace accumulation (1.31, 1.16, 1.34).
MB2
While sophomore Ayden Ames has been a fixture on the floor for Texas at the MB1 spot, MB2 has been a bit of a revolving door between Nya Bunton and Taylor Harvey. Both have flashed at times, but both have also had stretches of being ice cold both defensively and offensively. Both are critical to the late season opportunities for the Longhorns, but the constant shifting trying to find the hot hand here has made it tough for either player to consistently find their rhythm on the block or understand their role in the offense to the best of their potential abilities.
It is interesting the rate at which we see rotation here compared to other positions. When AVW or Cari Spears is having a rough match, they have mostly been allowed to play through it, really only getting subbed off the floor outside of their regular rotations in blowout matches where it is important for the depth behind them to get reps. If Anja Kujundzic isn’t serving darts, she doesn’t get the hook from her service specialist role in favor of Kenna Miller’s nasty top spin all that quickly.
Regardless of what the exactitudes are that go into the decision to juggle the MB2 spot, I think the final month of the season is a good time to pick a ride or die. If you have opportunities to rotate players in due to an obvious talent gap between Texas and their opponent, it would behoove the team to pull Ayden Ames off the floor as the known quantity and allow Bunton and Harvey the opportunities to work out the kinks. I’m sure this is a goal the coaching staff has, and there’s certainly no way this is a revelation for anyone. Texas has found itself in more scraps during the SEC schedule than they were likely anticipating they would, but hopefully this can settle down this month and allow the team to build the chemistry needed to present a cohesive attack come postseason play.
Ella Swindle
I’m as big an Ella stan as anyone else on this entire planet. I will sing her praises regarding her demeanor, her passion, and her leadership until the gods smite me down. I will also defend to the death the other things she offers to this team including a blocking talent that often goes wildly underappreciated. However, we have seen some unsteady sets and management of the offense from Ella. She is also one of the bigger offenders on the team regarding Texas’ struggles from the service line.
This isn’t a call to pull her off the floor by any stretch of the imagination, but it is more of a plea for the team to find a way to get her going consistently. When Ella is on her game, this Texas offense is capable of violating the inalienable human rights of any team in the country without consequence - there’s no one who can stop them. When Ella is off though, the offense looks…well it’d be extremely hard for these pin hitters to look bad but they look much more mortal. We all watched Ella find another gear as a wee freshman when she engineered the offense through the 2023 NCAA tournament and guided them to a national championship, so perhaps that level of dialed in really comes when all the chips are down. Here’s hoping that’s what we see this weekend.
Green Lights
Ayden Ames
This is something I’ve tracked for at least the last couple weeks. One of Texas’ favorite plays to run to open a set that they begin in serve-receive is the slide with Ayden Ames. This entire attack was notably absent for much of the early part of the season, but it has slowly been getting introduced more and more into the Texas offense especially when Ayden is on the floor. This shift to get her more involved has paid off handsomely - Ames racked up 11 kills and hit .526 last week alone - adding more dimension to the offense than simply relying on the very-talented outside hitters to stack points in a tight match.
Ayden has also been one of the centerpieces of the growth of the block from completely absent to occasionally suffocating quality teams when the need arises. For the season, she’s been a contributing factor in 56 blocks, a rate of .97 per set played. In the last three weeks, that number has crept up to 1.05 per set. While many Texas fans would like to see the blocking numbers much higher up than that (an issue not exclusive to Ames), the positive trend is promising. Ayden will have plenty of opportunities to see how her block stacks up this weekend with Logan Lednicky and Ifenna Cos-Okpalla leading the Aggie offense and Brooklyn DeLeye and Eva Hudson heading up the Wildcats.
The accolades haven’t given Ayden her flowers yet, but they also ignored Emma Halter for the majority of her first three years in Austin. Keep on killing it and let those Ws do the talking.
Abby Vander Wal
“AVW legacy match” was a common phrase in last week’s group chat conversations during the matches. While she did have a bit of a meltdown in serve-receive in the third set against Ole Miss, directly contributing to the Rebels forcing a fourth set, she was absolutely nails on offense. She led the Horns in Oxford with 21 kills on 45 swings, hitting .422 for the match. She followed it up with a less insane seven kills and .200 hitting percentage in LSU, but that still amounted to hitting .354 for 28 kills for the entire weekend.
It has been a promising although occasionally unsteady freshman campaign for AVW. This shouldn’t be stunning as this experience falls into the category of “feature not a bug” for freshmen playing a lot in any sport. However, Abby having something of a breakout game in the team’s second trip to the Magnolia State after a big yikes performance against Mississippi State is a strong reminder of how high the ceiling is for her. Barring any transfer portal silliness (open the wallets, NIL folks!), having all of Stafford, Spears, and Vander Wal back in 2026 should see the fruits of the labor of allowing the young players on this team to play through their mistakes and messy games.
Torrey Stafford
Who else would be the centerpiece of the green lights for this article besides Torrey? Even when having an off game like she did against Ole Miss, Torrey still finds a way to deliver invaluable points and back row defense. Stafford provided double-doubles in both matches last weekend, recording 26 kills, 24 digs, and three block assists in the process. With freshmen pins in AVW and Cari Spears, Stafford is obviously the elder statesman of the pin-hitting group and provides the experienced, reliable leadership needed to steady the team in the face of adversity.
It is also clear to those who have watched Texas plenty this year that Torrey is who the setters turn to when we absolutely need a point. While many matches can see Spears or Vander Wal racking up more swings or kills, I’ll argue that this is because Stafford is the known quantity on the team. Turning to Torrey Stafford in some of these other SEC matches would be the volleyball equivalent of taking the Lamborghini out of the garage just to make a run for groceries. If major betting websites took prop bets for college volleyball, I’d be putting my life savings down on Texas fully unleashing Stafford on A&M and Kentucky this weekend. It’s time to let those ponies run, Jerritt.
Next Up
As discussed at the top of the article, this is THE weekend for the volleyball team to prove their mettle! Get to College Station on Friday and help out the Longhorns and/or suffocate the Wildcats at Gregory Gym on Sunday!
#9 Texas A&M Aggies (17-3, 9-1, W5) - 6:30 PM CT on Friday, 10/31 at Reed Arena in College Station, TX (SEC Network)
#3 Kentucky Wildcats (16-2, 9-0, W13) - 12:00 PM CT on Sunday, 11/2 at Gregory Gymnasium in Austin, TX (ESPN)