With an impressive sweep over the oncoming Louisville Cardinals in the finals of the Austin (Texas) Regional, the seventh-ranked Minnesota Gophers women’s volleyball team has earned advancement to the NCAA Division I Final Four.
The Gophers will tangle with third-ranked Stanford, the defending national champions, Thursday evening (December 19) in the second of two semifinals, televised on ESPN.
Top-ranked Baylor will square off against fourth-ranked Wisconsin in the first semifinal at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The first serve of the Wisconsin vs. Baylor match is set for 6 p.m. (central time) with the Gophers vs. Stanford match following. The scheduled start
time is 8:30 p.m. (CST), depending upon how long the first match goes.
The national championship, between Thursday’s two winners, will be played Saturday, December 21, beginning at 7 p.m. (CST) and will be aired on ESPN 2.
After being eliminated at home by Oregon in last year’s Regional Semifinals and missing a chance to play in the 2018 Final Four, which was played in Minneapolis, the Gophers qualified this year with regional victories over Florida (3-2) and a 3-0 sweep over Louisville in Austin last weekend.
Minnesota was down two sets to one against the Gators, but rallied with back-to-back victories to advance to the finals where they prevailed on scores of 25-21, 25-14 and 25-16 as the trio of Adanna Rollins (12), Stephanie Samedy (nine) and Alexis Hart (nine) combined for 30 kills in the match.
Setter Kylie Miller, a transfer from UCLA, put up 28 set assists in the victory over Louisville, which had put together a Cinderella-like tournament run before being stopped short by the surging Gophers, who have now won seven straight matches and are an exceptional 27-5 for the entire season. Rollins, Hart and Miller were each named to the All-Tournament Team of the Austin Regional and Rollins was selected as the tourney’s Most Outstanding Player.
Minnesota, which has never won a national volleyball championship, is playing in the Final Four for the sixth time. Stanford, a perennial collegiate volleyball power, is playing in the Final Four for the 23rd time and has won two of the last three national championships.
The Minnesota Gophers won a big-time Big 10 men’s basketball game Sunday, defeating third-ranked Ohio State, 84-71. Newcomer Marcus Carr was most impressive. A 6-2 redshirt sophomore guard from Toronto, Carr scored 35 points, drew seven fouls, dished off seven assists, snagged three rebounds, blocked a shot and came up with up two steals. Now that’s feeling up the ‘stat’ sheet!
Congratulations to the Adrian / Ellsworth boys basketball team on its hard-fought, double overtime, victory over Westbrook-Walnut Grove at Adrian last Friday (December 13) by the final score of 92-89. Peyton Lewis (25), Ian Stamer (22), Grant Jansma (15) and Lance Luettel (14) all scored in double figures for the Dragons, who came back the next day (Saturday, the 14th) and posted a 73-54 victory over Russell-Tyler-Ruthton at Tyler.
Without a doubt, there is going to plenty of exciting action in the always highly-competitive Red Rock Conference this winter.
I am going to keep my Bleacher Views a bit shorter this week as there are several basketball games, along with wrestling action, from last week to fill up the sports pages.
In another week, the minutes of daylight will stop becoming shorter each day. Slowly, but surely, they will begin becoming longer. It will take a few weeks to really notice the difference. But the change is always a welcome sign that spring is approaching!
