By RUSS BROWN • Photos Provided By UofL Athletics
Congratulations are in order for Louisville’s tenacious volleyball team. The Cardinals ignored the pressure of expectations and overcame some late-season adversity to reach their goal of playing in the NCAA Final Four in the KFC Yum! Center, their homecourt.
Because of the Voice-Tribune’s holiday printing schedule, you may be reading this when you already know the outcome of the tournament on Dec. 19 and 22. But win or lose, it’s been another successful season in a long string of highlights for coach Dani Busboom Kelly.
Throughout the season, the Cards didn’t let nerves or anxiety creep in despite knowing that anything short of reaching the Final Four in an arena just a few miles from their campus would be a disappointment not only to themselves but also to their thousands of fans. As WDRB’s Eric Crawford put it, that was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Kelly called the Final Four “an epic moment for this program.”
“When the Final Four got announced (to be held) here in 2024, it was like a dream,” she said. “Can we ever do this? Will we have a team that can make it and then to go through the season with all the pressure? You know, we’ve been talking about this almost every single week, and to be able to get through those moments and play how we have been incredible. It’s hard to get there, especially when all that extra pressure is on your back. I’m just really, really proud of what our team did.”
Kelly made sure players were tested time again, forged by the iron of a non-conference schedule she put together that featured games against six Top 25 teams, in addition to the challenge of an ACC slate with four more ranked teams. The Cards faced seven Top 10 clubs, plus No. 11 Kentucky. That strength of schedule and a 25-5 record earned them one of the four No. 1 seeds for the tournament.
They needed to summon all of their confidence and intensity after losing their last two regular season matches against No. 1 Pitt and No. 5 Stanford and then staring at what would have been a shocking elimination loss to unseeded Northern Iowa in the second round of the tournament, losing the first set before rallying for a 3-2 win.
Playing in Freedom Hall in front of 5,284 fans, whose enthusiastic cheering sounded like twice as many, U of L dominated Purdue in the regional opener, sweeping the No. 4-seeded Boilermakers and prompting their coach, Dave Shondell, to remark that the Cards “are on fire.” They proved it again in the Elite Eight, ousting Stanford 3-1 to avenge a loss in California in the regular season finale and earn the program’s third trip to the Final Four in four years.
U of L had a chance to avenge two more of its defeats in the Final Four, where it faced top overall seed Pittsburgh (32-1 with an 18-match winning streak). The Panthers beat the Cards 3-2 on Oct. 25 in the Steel City and 3-1 in Louisville on Nov. 27. If U of L was able to get past Pitt, it would have met either Nebraska (33-2) or Penn State (32-2) in the championship game. The Cards lost to both early in the season.
Advancing to the Final Four was especially gratifying for hometown star Anna DeBeer, the former Assumption High School standout who returned for a fifth season because of her determination to make sure the Cards didn’t fall short of their goal.
Against Stanford DeBeer, an outside hitter, recorded her second consecutive match with 15 kills while adding six digs, two blocks and an ace. She was named the Most Outstanding Player of the regional for the second time. Also selected to the All-Regional team were senior outside hitter Charitie Luper and senior libero Elena Scott, another local product from Mercy Academy.
“It’s a crazy feeling,” DeBeer said. “Knowing it was in Louisville, and knowing how hard it has been to get there in the past. Knowing it was so hard every single match, all the pressure, all the things you have to think about, and to finally do it again for my last year. . .I think it was truly every single person really stepping up and giving it their all to be back in the Yum again. We had a little saying, ‘It starts and ends in Yum!’ This team wanted it really bad, and that just shows our fight and our grit and the mental toughness we have. (“Starting 5: Louisville volleyball has chapters to write for NCAA ... - MSN”) We were having fun and going after it.”
U of L will lose four of its top five players next season, but nobody is counting the Cards out. In her eight seasons, Busboom Kelly has never missed the NCAA Tournament, where her .759 winning percentage (22-7) is among the nation’s leading coaches, as is her overall record of 202-43 (.824).
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