Texas volleyball sweeps defending national champion Texas A&M, builds momentum for postseason

AUSTIN – Texas didn’t exactly save its best for last.

But the 14th-ranked Longhorn volleyball team certainly saved it for the No. 17 Aggies and swept the defending national champions before a packed house of 4,398, including the Longhorn band and women’s hoop star Madison Booker, on Sunday afternoon at Gregory Gym.

The last, of course, is yet to come in terms of the NCAA Tournament.

And that is always the focus of coach Jerritt Elliott in his annual quest to stack another national title onto the ones earned in 2012 and in back-to-back seasons in 2022 and 2023.

But the 2023 season seems an eternity ago. That’s especially true after Texas has ended the previous two seasons without even reaching the Final Four.

Losses in the regional finals and semifinals in 2025 and 2024 has only strengthened Longhorn resolve, and it showed up when Texas needed just 98 minutes to dismantle a talented A&M team on a searing hot streak with four consecutive wins, including back-to-back numbers on Kentucky and Tennessee. The sweep was the Longhorns’ fourth in their last five matches and extended their series record over A&M to 80-25.

Asked if this was his team’s best performance of the year after hitting a blazing .609 in the second set, Elliott said, “I mean, I thought we played pretty good. We played pretty good against (SEC leader) Florida, but we didn’t close. We did today.”

The Longhorns fell in five sets to the Gators two weeks ago but have rebounded with three consecutive sweeps of South Carolina, Georgia and now A&M. Texas was in total command Sunday after falling behind 3-0 in the opening set and steamrolled the error-prone Aggies 25-18, 25-19, 25-21.

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Jamie Morrison, the one-time Longhorn assistant who has been at College Station four years and took A&M to the mountaintop last December, wasn’t at all happy with his team’s performance.

“We just didn’t show up as ourselves,” said Morrison, whose team has had to overcome some injuries to his middle blockers. “We tried to settle down, but it was just chaotic on our side.”

Texas had a lot to do with that. It got contributions from its entire lineup, including sophomore middle blocker Taylor Harvey and sophomore outside hitter Addy Gaido, as well as its all-stars Torrey Stafford, Cari Spears and freshman superstar Henley Anderson.

Stafford and Anderson led the way, combining for 23 kills as both hit .393 or better in the match. Anderson added four digs, two blocks and a service ace to her 10 kills, her 15th straight match with double-digit kills.

But Harvey contributed with three of her career-high four service aces in the second set to get the Aggies out of system. She and Gaido teamed up with middle blocker Nya Bunton for 16 kills as A&M never knew where Texas’ offense was coming from.

“Taylor’s feeling really fresh right now,” Elliott said. “Our coaches said yesterday that we felt like she was jumping the best she’s ever jumped.”

Texas lives through Harvey’s high-risk, high-reward serving style but doesn’t feel it can sub her out in the team’s 6-2 rotation it uses to get its taller players on the court and provide more offense.

“We’ve got a lot of young players, and they’re still trying to learn the game and the speed of the game,” Elliott said. “We got a little sloppy in Game 3, then all of a sudden we got back into dialing in to learn how to win.”

Anderson’s one of those young stallions. The phenom from Dripping Springs, who’s a film junkie and avid sportswoman no matter if it’s snow skiing or skeet shooting, has quickly assimilated into Texas’ lineup, and Elliott raves about her maturity. Stafford said it was Anderson’s best match of the year.

“Amazing,” Elliott said of Anderson. “Her range and her shot selection have really improved. Early in the year, she was just a one-trick pony, and now she’s doing a lot of different things and adding tips, high line shots, hitting deep corner, hitting hard cross

This was all about positioning as a youthful Texas team has put behind it an uncharacteristically bad non-conference season with four losses and a season-ending injury to outside hitter Abby Vander Wal in August and is focused solely on what’s ahead.

And Elliott likes his team’s position. To a degree.

With the win, the Longhorns climbed to 12-7 and 8-3 in SEC play as they try to gain some separation in the logjam that is this conference. Entering Sunday’s play, Florida  sat atop the standings with a 9-1 record, a half-game ahead of 8-3 Kentucky. Texas and A&M (14-9) were in a clump with two other teams with identical 7-3 marks, and three others were 6-4 in a tight bunch.

“Gigantic, right?” Elliott said. “We’re fighting to be a top-four seed. You want to have two byes going into (the SEC tournament). So now we’re in control of that. We’ve got to take care of business, and we’ve got a chance to be a top four team.”

Rare is it that a Texas team has entered the critical month of November being under the radar. But it’s true. Texas travels to Missouri on Friday and to Vanderbilt on Sunday before closing out the regular season against Ole Miss and LSU.

“The SEC is really tough,” Stafford said. “In the beginning, we weren’t playing our best so I think everyone kind of shot us down. We showed up really well today and want to peak at the right time. Like every game, you can’t take off. So we had a lot of juice coming into this match.”

It showed. Texas hit .367 in the first set when A&M was its own worst enemy with six attack errors as well as three service errors. The Longhorns finished with an impressive .375 percentage on the day while also holding A&M to an anemic .138 hitting rate.

The normally reliable Natalie Ring and ferocious Kyndal Stowers had their offensive moments for the Aggies but took too many chances and hit just .207 and .059 overall.

But there’s a decent chance these two will see each other again in the postseason.

“The SEC used to have one good team in Florida,” Elliott said, “but now we’ve won four of the last six national championships. The SEC is for real now.”

And Texas is right in that mix.

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This article originally published at Texas volleyball sweeps defending national champion Texas A&M, builds momentum for postseason.