Eggleston leads Texas to Final Four
AUSTIN — It had to be Logan Eggleston. Had to be.
The patron saint of Texas volleyball. The Grim Reaper come to end Ohio State’s season. A transcendent outside hitter driven by the chase for greatness — and for the only thing that’s eluded her as she approaches the end of her fifth and final season with the Longhorns.
Saturday night in front of the largest crowd ever gathered at Gregory Gymnasium, Eggleston delivered the matchsealing kill to give topseeded Texas (26-1) a 3-1 win (25-18, 21-15, 25-13, 2521) over No. 3 seed Ohio State (22-10) in the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight. The Longhorns will travel to Omaha for next week’s Final Four, the program’s 10th time reaching the national semifinals in the last 15 seasons.
Texas will play No. 2 seed San Diego on Thursday after the Toreros (31-1) defeated No. 1 seed Stanford. On the other side of the bracket, No. 1 seed Louisville will face No. 2 seed Pittsburgh.
“She was determined. She’s just an unbelievable competitor when the game is on the line,” Texas coach Jerritt Elliott said of Eggleston Saturday night. “The bigger the game, the better she plays. And when she gets that way, yeah, we feed her a lot of balls and she gets us to where we want to be.”
With 5,344 fans crammed into the old gymnasium, Eggleston didn’t disappoint.
She was named the Austin Regional most outstanding player after finishing the match with 20 kills (.341 hitting percentage), nine digs, three blocks and two service aces. And Eggleston, playing in her final home match, delivered the final two points to eliminate a courageous Ohio State team that rallied back from a 19-14 hole to win the second set and even the match.
In the five-minute break between the second and third sets, Texas refocused. And it wasn’t just Eggleston leading the charge. There was also fire from veteran teammates like fifth-year middle blocker Asjia O’Neal and senior libero Zoe Fleck, both of whom joined Eggleston on the Austin Regional all-tournament team.
“Really the conversation just was we need to keep our foot on the gas,” O’Neal said. “They’re an incredible team and they’re not going to let up. Everybody wants this so incredibly bad because the Final Four is an incredible thing to accomplish. So it’s really just keeping that fire and giving that energy, making sure everybody was in the right headspace.”
That bit of recalibration served Texas well.
The Longhorns recorded eight blocks in the third set as Ohio State hit minus-.105. O’Neal got involved on five of those stuffs at the net, and she finished with a team-high eight blocks to go along with seven kills.
O’Neal also had one key block in the fourth set where she slid right and smothered an attack from Ohio State senior outside hitter Jenaisya Moore to put Texas up 19-16. But just as O’Neal warned, the Buckeyes were going down swinging.
Junior outside hitter Emily Londot smashed a kill to cut Texas’ lead to 22-21. But the Buckeyes followed with a service error, and at that point Eggleston was ready to swing her scythe.
“My teammates put me in a really great position and I was able to find a way,” Eggleston said of scoring the match’s final two points. “And it’s just so exciting when you get to come together and just hug it out and really feel all the emotions. It was a lot of ups and downs in that game so it’s an amazing feeling to get to lean on your teammates at the end.”
Eggleston did get plenty of help from her teammates.
Beyond O’Neal and Fleck (18 digs, two aces), Texas got impactful performances from sophomore outside hitter Madisen Skinner (13 kills), junior opposite hitter Molly Phillips (five kills, six blocks) and fifth-year setter Saige Ka’aha’aina-Torres (40 assists, four blocks).
Immediately after the win, Eggleston led the Longhorns around the court to high-five the rapturous fans. Everyone was grinning, bouncing, reveling.
But no one was completely satisfied yet, least of all Eggleston. Not when she still has her heart set on winning two more matches and adding a fourth national championship banner to Gregory Gym’s rafters.
“It’s not a surprise to me that we’re in this position,” Eggleston said during a postgame interview, peering right to look at Elliott, O’Neal and Ka’aha’aina-Torres. “I’ve seen it every single day in the practice gym. It’s a prioroity. It’s why we came to Texas. It’s why we’re back for our fifth years at Texas. We’re so determined.”