No. 11-seeded Cardinals Advance with 3-1 Win Over San Diego

Thursday, April 15

Omaha, NE

12:00 p.m.

University of Louisville

15-2,12-2ACC

University of San Diego

13-5,12-4WCC

San Diego

Louisville

No. 11-seeded Cardinals Advance with 3-1 Win Over San Diego

April 15, 2021 | Women's Volleyball

Box Score Louisville vs San Diego Postmatch Quotes Dani Busboom Kelly and Claire Chaussee Complete box score and play by play

Claire Chaussee leads with career-high 21 kills

By: Nancy Worley

OMAHA -- Junior reserve outside hitter Claire Chaussee picked the perfect outing to notch a career-high in kills as she threw down 21 to lead the University of Louisville to a 3-1 win over San Diego to advance the Cardinals to their second consecutive and sixth overall Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA Second Round match Thursday afternoon in the CHI Health Convention Center.

"We were definitely very excited about getting back to the Sweet Sixteen. It was a super hard-fought match by our team," said Dani Busboom Kelly, UofL head coach. "San Diego is really good, so we were definitely expecting a battle and we got every minute of that battle that we expected. One of the things you will hear about our team is our depth and we had to use that today. You saw Claire Chaussee come off the bench and lead us in pretty much everything. Not a surprise to us, but still really cool to see and really important for us to have that confidence moving forward that it can be anybody's day."

The Cardinals advance to play Washington with the 14-25, 25-23, 25-17, 29-27 win and move to 15-2 on the season. UofL hit .227 with 15 blocks and five aces, surviving 12 service errors. ACC and AVCA East Region Freshman of the Year Anna DeBeer had 11 kills and five blocks. Amaya Tillman rejected USD nine times, adding four kills. Tori Dilfer ran the offense with 41 assists and an ace, helping out with four blocks. Chaussee filled up the stat box adding two aces and a team-high 10 digs.

San Diego bows out with a 13-5 record and was led by Grace Frohling's 17 kills, and three blocks. Roxie Wiblin had 13 kills and Thana Fayad added 11 kills to the Torero totals. USD hit .202 with four aces and seven blocks.

The match was one of wild momentum swings with a total of 21 ties and nine lead changes overall and included the Cards' longest set of the season in the final set of the match.

In the first set, the Toreros caught the Cards flat-footed powering to a 25-14 win. USD had taken care of business the afternoon before with a 3-0 disposal of Texas A&M-Corpus Cristi and may have been a bit more relaxed about the unconventional atmosphere of playing in a partitioned court in a cavernous convention center. UofL hit a frigid -.077 and had scored the first six points for the Toreros on hitting errors.

"For sure we had some nerves in the first set. I think one of the things about being in the bubble is it is tough," said Busboom Kelly. "We had 30 minutes to practice on that court at 7 a.m. yesterday and that is the only 30 minutes we got. At 7 a.m. in general you wouldn't get much out of it and when you are in a whole new arena on a new court with weird backdrop, it is just a lot of different things going on that are out of the norm. I wasn't surprised we started out slowly but it went poorly in a hurry. I didn't think necessarily that we would be bad for the whole set but I knew we couldn't play much worse than that after game one. That is kind of to be expected. San Diego got to play before. While it is great to be seeded and get a bye and it is an advantage in someways but I think it was a disadvantage as a set up because you didn't get the experience in the environment because it is so unique."

In the second set, San Diego maintained momentum early, using a 6-0 run to go up 14-10 early. Busboom Kelly inserted Chausee into the lineup and she responded with seven kills, hitting .875 and scored five of the final 10 points of the set. UofL did not regain the lead until 22-21 on a miss by Fayad. A kill by Chaussee gave the Cards set point at 24-23 and a ball-handling error charged to the Toreros gave the Cards the 25-23 win and evened the set score going into the break.

"Going into this tournament, we all knew we could make a big run," said Chaussee. "I think for the people who started, we had two players who had never really seen what a tournament even looks like, so I wasn't surprise that we had some jitters coming into the game. I just wanted every ball because I didn't want the season to end and I was going to do anything I could for us to move forward. But I would not have had that game without the team behind me. Obviously you cannot win a game of volleyball with just one player."

In the third set, a deflated San Diego squad let the Cardinals jump out to an 8-5 lead early but tied at ten on a UofL miscue. UofL responded immediately with a 5-0 run to go up 15-10 at the media timeout. The Cards commanded the lead down the stretch to a 25-17 win. Chaussee paced the Cards with five kills and two aces in the stanza.

"I can't pinpoint anything specific that turned us around but Claire coming off the bench with a lot of fire and it felt like she was unstoppable," said Busboom Kelly. "We left Aiko Jones in the back row where she has not been a lot in this spring and she started getting kills out of the back row and that gave us a ton of confidence. We were doing some things that we have not seen in a few months to be successful. We knew the rest of our game would follow along once those started going great."

With their backs to the walls, San Diego gave Louisville all it could handle in the fourth set. Eight ties and four lead changes with the Cards having match point three times only to be thwarted by a tenacious Torero squad, which in fact, had set point itself at 27-26 but could not convert. UofL had the match winner on a block by Amaya Tillman and Aiko Jones for the 29-27 win.

"Going into this tournament, we all knew we could make a big run," said Chaussee. "I think for the people who started, we had two players who had never really seen what a tournament even looks like, so I wasn't surprise that we had some jitters coming into the game. I just wanted every ball because I didn't want the season to end and I was going to do anything I could for us to move forward. But I would not have had that game without the team behind me. Obviously you cannot win a game of volleyball with just one player."