Gophers swept out of NCAA Elite Eight volleyball by Wisconsin

MADISON, WIS. – You can work extremely hard to comprehend the journey of a collegiate season as something more than wins and losses — as growth, development, progress, maturity — but that doesn't mean it will be easy to comprehend that final loss.

On Saturday night in the Madison Regional final at a heaving UW Field House, that moment came for the Gophers volleyball team as it lost to Wisconsin 25-18, 26-24, 25-22, falling short of making the NCAA tournament's Final Four.

As Gophers coach Hugh McCutcheon and fifth-year seniors Stephanie Samedy and Airi Miyabe — their Gophers playing careers abruptly ended — sat at the podium for post-match interviews, there was an element of ridiculousness to questions about how to process what just happened.

What can you say, really?

"I said a few words, but I'm not sure many of them were heard and I say that relative to the fact that everybody is just in an emotional space right now," McCutcheon said. "We can try to create some rational context for this pretty phenomenal year that we've been through.

"But the words after a while — 20, 10 minutes after you've just come out of a battle — probably fall a little bit if not on deaf ears but hard to comprehend ears. Because it's not a rational moment."

Especially when it came to Samedy. The Gophers great, who redefined the U's attack over what figures to be five seasons as an All-America opposite hitter, tallied 12 kills and seven digs in her finale.

"There are just some careers that need to be celebrated and savored. It has been a privilege for us to have Stephanie as part of our program," McCutcheon said. "Stephanie has been incredibly impactful. I just hope all of you can take a moment to recognize that. We stood here and greatness was among us."

It took a deep, balanced attack by Wisconsin (28-3) to navigate that greatness and keep Minnesota (22-9) guessing in a tense match that belied the score and came down to a few crucial moments.

Two that will linger came on Wisconsin service aces.

The first was by middle blocker Dana Rettke — her first ace of the year — with Wisconsin up 23-22 in the second set. It came over sinking with no rotation and left Gophers libero CC McGraw diving, the ball just out of reach.

Rettke said she had been working on her serve nonstop in practice. So she was ready for the moment. She called it "flean" — meaning flat and clean.

"It was the best serve I've ever seen," her teammate Devyn Robinson said.

Another ace by Lauren Barnes, this time with the Badgers leading 19-18 in the third, was equally confounding as the Gophers back row thought it was drifting out. When it dived in, McCutcheon called a timeout as the Badgers crowd erupted.

Wisconsin would close out the set, and the match, nine points later. It was the Badgers' third win over the Gophers this season and clinched their third straight trip to the Final Four.

The Wisconsin attack kept the Gophers strained defensively all night — the Badgers had 51 kills to Minnesota's 37 and hit .258 compared with .193.

"Certainly offensively they had a little more balance and I thought they used the slide particularly effectively tonight and that was tough for us," McCutcheon said. "We just weren't able to generate enough offense behind the defense."

It was a perfect environment for college volleyball, if hostile for the Gophers. The two rivals had never met in the NCAA tournament and the Wisconsin crowd was ready.

Fans were lined up two hours before the match with breath steaming and scarves wrapped high as they did knee-highs to stay warm. By the time Wisconsin freshman Julia Orzol served to start the match, the stands were a swarm of red.

While it may not make a perfect lasting image for this one-of-a-kind year for Minnesota, that doesn't mean they won't try to appreciate what it meant overall.

"We all played our hardest tonight, and we just came up short," Samedy said. "Losing hurts, but congrats to Wisconsin. I think we'll all get lessons that we can move on with."