Photo credit: @IndianaVB/X
GREGORY GYMNASIUM – Indiana suffered its first loss of the young season as they fell in three sets to the No. 1 ranked and two-time defending national champion Texas Longhorns.
Things did not start off particularly well for the Hoosiers, as they were outplayed throughout the first set and Texas showed why they were the two-time defending champions. The Longhorns jumped out to an early lead and never looked back, and they ended up dominating the first set en route to a 25-8 win.
However, it was a different story in the second and third sets as the Hoosiers showed much more fight from that point on. In the second set, Indiana stayed neck-and-neck with the top-ranked team in the country and even managed to take a 17-11 lead to get within striking distance of winning the set. The burst was punctuated by Candela Alonso-Corcelles picking up where she left off in the previous game against UC Davis by leading her team with an impressive kill.
However, the lead was relatively short-lived, as Texas cranked their offense back up and took the second set by a score of 25-22 to go up 2-0 in the match.
In the third set, Indiana came out strong and took the lead early in the set, with one of the highlights being an excellent ace serve from Camryn Haworth.
However, Texas used a comeback run to take the lead right back and they went up by as many as four points as the set approached its finish. Alonso-Corcelles connected on another service ace to cut the lead down to 24-22, but the Longhorns delivered the game-clinching point to sweep the Hoosiers three sets to none.
Indiana drops to 3-1 on the season. They are back in action tomorrow when they finish off their trip to Austin by facing off against the Miami Hurricanes at 7:00 PM ET.
