The University of Minnesota volleyball team’s national championship hopes are gone after suffering an upset loss to Oregon in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 on Friday night.
Ranked No. 2 in the country, the Gophers were playing at home before a crowd of 5,187 people and jumped out to a 1-0 set lead before falling in three straight sets to No. 15 Oregon.
One B1G giant goes down. One B1G giant awaits @OregonVB. #NCAAVB pic.twitter.com/LnE8sc8hyJ
— NCAA Women's Volleyball (@NCAAVolleyball) December 8, 2018
The second set was filled with drama, including 16 ties and 11 lead changes before Oregon won it 41-39. In volleyball, the first 25 wins but a team has to win by two points. Minnesota and Oregon tied at 23-23 and then tied 16 more times until the Ducks put it away for the match-tying set victory.
Minnesota head coach Hugh McCutchen, via GopherSports.com, said the second set loss was a heartbreaker.
“But that’s the way that it works out, and we got our hearts broken a little bit,” he said. “It took us a while to recover, I think that was clear. The start of the third set would be indicative of that.”
Oregon rolled to a 25-14 victory in set three and then finished off the Gophers 26-24 in the fourth set.
The Gophers end the season with a record of 27-4.
Oregon will play Nebraska at Maturi Pavilion in Minneapolis Saturday at 5 p.m. with a trip to the Final Four on the line. The Final Four will be played next weekend at Target Center in Minneapolis.
