VB Falls in Sweet 16 to Louisville

Thursday, December 8

Louisville, Ky.

12:30 PM

Baylor

25-7,12-4Big 12

Louisville

29-2,17-1ACC

Baylor

Louisville

VB Falls in Sweet 16 to Louisville

12/8/2022 4:24:00 PM | Volleyball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)

Bears fall in three to the Cardinals in Sweet 16

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Compared to a Louisville lineup dominated by fifth-year seniors and loaded with experience, Baylor volleyball looked more like a kiddie corps.
            That youth – with three freshman starters – still carried the Bears to a runner-up finish in the Big 12, a 25-win season and their fourth-straight NCAA region semifinal. But at least on this day, the Cardinals' experience was their trump card.
            A Final Four team last year, Louisville (29-2) used the hot hands of ACC Player of the Year Claire Chaussee and 2021 All-American Anna DeBeer with 11 kills apiece in a 3-0 sweep of Baylor, 25-23, 25-16, 25-17, Thursday afternoon in the NCAA region semifinals at the KFC Yum! Center.
            "A great atmosphere here, a first-time experience," Baylor coach Ryan McGuyre said of the crowd of 5,002. "To be honest, that's the only thing this team doesn't have: experience. It's the first time they've been in this atmosphere. The ball comes on you a little hotter, a little faster."
            The Cardinals recorded their sixth-straight sweep and third in a row in the NCAA Tournament, advancing to Saturday's 3 p.m. region final to face third-seeded Oregon (26-5), while the Bears (25-7) were swept for the first time since a 3-0 loss to No. 1-ranked Texas on Nov. 5, 2021.
            Baylor, which fell in the region semifinals for the third-straight year after making the program's only Final Four appearance in 2019, was led by Elise McGhee and Lauren Harrison with eight and seven kills, respectively.
            Louisville finished with a 10.0-3.0 edge in blocks and 46-39 in digs while holding the Bears to a .098 hitting percentage for the match.
            "You can't just have one shot or hit hard straight ahead. . . . I think for some of our younger hitters, they default to that: See ball, hit ball," McGuyre said. "They've seen you hit it a thousand times over the year. You have to start hitting it to some different places. Our first touch wasn't good enough off serve receive. (Louisville's) blocks were much more well-formed after the first set. We were seeing four hands more often in our face when we were trying to attack the ball."
            Toe-to-toe with the Cardinals in the first set, Baylor never trailed by more than five points and tied it up for the fifth time at 20-20 on a Harrison kill. Back-to-back blocks and a 3-0 run forced McGuyre to call his second timeout of the set.
            Mallory Talbert had two kills and an ace to pull the Bears back within one, 24-23, before Louisville setter Raquel Lazaro closed it out with a dump kill.
            "I think you want to be terminal, and you want to win those long rallies, because it leads to lots of energy on either side," said McGhee, who had three of her eight kills in the first set. "I feel like we didn't have as many go our way, so that had the energy shift. They won the rallies they should have."
            DeBeer, who missed 12 games earlier this year with a knee injury, had six kills and two blocks in a dominant second set. Then, the Cardinals finished off the third set and the match with a 9-3 run, ending it with a kill by middle blocker Phekran Kong.
            Harrison added eight digs and two blocks, Lauren Briseno had 12 digs and one of the team's three aces and freshman setter Averi Carlson had 26 assists and seven digs.
            Senior middle blocker Kara McGhee became the first player in program history to make it to four-straight region semifinals. She had four kills and two blocks and hit a team-high .333 for the match with only one error in nine total swings.
            Kara McGhee, Harrison and Talbert finished their collegiate careers, but they were the only upperclassmen in a 10-player rotation that included freshman starters Carlson, Averi Sczech and Alexis Dacosta.
            "This obviously wasn't the outcome we wanted," Harrison said, "but I think we've just grown so much as a team over the season. I'm excited to see what this team does next season. They are going to be awesome."
            McGuyre called his senior trio "spectacular women."
            "It's such a new season this year. We arrived at the same place, unfortunately, as last year," he said. "Mallory Talbert came in and just in a great way could relate to the freshmen as a fifth-year senior. It was so beautiful. Kara, Elise's big sister, has never had the loudest voice in the gym. But this year, she's had the biggest impact in not only influencing the team, but being an encouragement to me.
            "Lauren has really been mad at me for not letting her play six rows until this year. She's put all the work in. And just to see her flourish and be a reliable passer, hit out of the back row, the defense. She's not only flourished this year as an all-around athlete, but I think she's also just an all-around person."


LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Baylor volleyball finished their season in the Sweet 16 against Louisville, falling in a 3-0 bout with the top-seeded Cardinals in the KFC Yum! Center.

The Bears (25-7) fell to UofL (29-2) in three – 25-23, 25-16, 25-17.

Ranked 17^th by the AVCA, the 15^th overall seed and seeded fourth in the regional, BU took the No. 4 ranked, fourth seeded and No. 1 regional seed to the wire in the first set and fought for the next two but couldn't close.

The Cardinals have swept each of their last six opponents and move into the Elite Eight to face Oregon on Saturday.

It was BU's seventh-straight NCAA Tournament appearance, 11^th overall, and fourth-straight Regional Semifinal appearance. Baylor is now 20-11 in postseason matches including an NCAA record of 15-11. The Bears are 12-7 in the NCAA Tournament under head coach Ryan McGuyre.

BU is one of just seven teams who reached the Regional round in the past four years, joined by Florida, Louisville, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas and Wisconsin.

Carlson was named the AVCA's Southwest Region Freshman of the Year on Tuesday, while McGhee was named first team All-District by the organization. Carlson, Talbert and Harrison were each named Honorable Mention.

Mallory Talbert got a hot start in the first set with four kills while Elise McGhee, Lauren Harrison and Allie Sczech each registered four.

The second set had both Elise and Harrison get three kills while Lauren Briseño dug seven balls.

In the third frame, Harrison dug three balls and Kara McGhee and Allie Sczech went up for a block together. Mallory Talbert and Elise McGhee each got two kills.

QUOTABLE
"Congrats to Louisville. They played a great match, and they were definitely the steadiest from start to finish. I am not sure if I felt like we were ever in control, I thought we were competitive at moments and a lot of moments not. I thought we had opportunities in that first set that our whole team realizes that we would love to get back. That changes the course of the match. At the end, we are hopeful that the best versions of ourselves always comes out in these matches. But we also know that we train so maybe the worst version of ourselves is still competitive and better than other teams' best. I saw some good individual moments from a lot of players. I just didn't feel like we were as adhesive as a team unit as I wanted to be. At this level, every cylinder has to be firing for the most part. Again, it probably wasn't just one player or one play here and there. It seems like we only had five cylinders clicking in all of these rallies and maybe had a hiccup here and there. Offensively, Louisville attacked us well, and I thought we got some touches, but they covered well. We needed to be a little bit better at our side out game. It was just not strong enough. We had chances to go back there and serve. We could score some points when we were getting some aces or got them out of system. We weren't winning enough of the long rallies and then the side out phase created some gaps for us to catch up on."

-BaylorBears.com-