Nebraska Cornhuskers and Texas Longhorns fight for NCAA D1 volleyball title

by Elizabeth Monsef

Sports Editor

On Dec. 19, The Texas Longhorns and the Nebraska Cornhuskers fought for the NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball title. The women played their hardest throughout the tournament, enduring six rounds of playoff games including the championship match.

Nebraska swept Texas in three sets, scoring 25-23, 25-23, and 25-21. The Longhorns put up a fight, but could not match the skill and determination that Nebraska dished out all night long.

Huskers fans packed into CenturyLink Center with 17,561 spectators. According to the college, tickets to the game had sold out earlier in the week, ultimately leading to the largest crowd ever for an NCAA Volleyball championship match. The Husker girls went 32-4 throughout the season ending on a 16 game winning streak. After a nine year wait, they finally brought home yet another national title, raising the team up to four total championships since 1995. Ironically, twenty years ago the two teams battled for the championship and the same result was achieved; Nebraska won then and again this season.

Freshman Mikaela Foecke was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player as well as national Freshman of the Year by PrepVolleyball.com. Foecke averaged 3.09 kills per set proving to be an extremely valuable attribute for the Huskers. Foecke will be forever remembered as the third freshman of all time to be named the MVP of the finals.

As Randy York writes in the official blog of the Huskers, Nebraska’s head coach John Cook could not be more thrilled with his team, and pleased with their success in 2015. He shares, “You know what? It’s so freeing and rewarding for a coach, I just sat out there and watched it all go on Saturday night,” Cook said. “I had so much trust in this team that they were going to get it done. It’s the greatest feeling you can have in coaching. I couldn’t be happier as a coach and I couldn’t be happier for this young team.”

(Sources: Huskers.com & NCAA)