Volleyball game between the Texas Longhorns and Rice Owls at Gregory Gym in Austin, Texas on August 14, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)
Texas Volleyball earned its first sweep of the season in a match that was considerably tighter than the final 3-0 score suggested. The No. 2 Longhorns defeated the No. 18 TCU Horned Frogs 30-28, 25-23, 25-23 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, opening the Players Era Volleyball Showcase with three sets decided by a combined six points.
The first set established the tone immediately. Texas built an early advantage, but TCU gradually worked its way back and moved ahead 19-18 behind Becca Kelley and Evan Hendrix. The Horned Frogs then reached set point at 24-22, putting Texas in danger of dropping the opener. A kill from Torrey Stafford and a TCU attack error brought the Longhorns even, and from there the set turned into a series of one-point answers.
TCU had several opportunities to finish it, but Texas kept extending the set. Nya Bunton and Stafford supplied kills when the Longhorns needed them, and another TCU attack error finally gave Texas a 29-28 lead. Cari Spears followed with the closing kill for a 30-28 win. It was a difficult way to take the first set, but the Longhorns escaped after facing four TCU set points.
There was almost no separation in the second. The set produced 15 ties and seven lead changes as neither team could establish control for long. Back-to-back kills from Stafford gave Texas a 17-14 lead, only for TCU to answer and move ahead 19-18. The Longhorns responded with kills from Spears and Taylor Harvey, then a Spears service ace put Texas in front 23-22.
The final point of the second set was one of the more important defensive sequences of the match. With Texas leading 24-23, Ramsey Gary kept the rally alive with a pancake dig. Rella Binney turned the save into a set for Stafford, who finished the point and gave Texas a 25-23 victory. Instead of heading into the break tied, the Longhorns had a 2-0 advantage after surviving another set that could easily have gone either direction.
Texas opened the third with a little more breathing room, taking a 4-1 lead and later extending it to 9-5. TCU again refused to let the margin grow. The Horned Frogs put together five consecutive points and eventually moved ahead 15-14 behind a Jalyn Gibson service ace and a Kelley kill. By 19-19, the match had returned to the same point-for-point pattern that defined the first two sets.
This time Henley Anderson helped Texas create the separation it needed. An Anderson kill made it 20-19, and Bunton followed with a quick attack before combining with Anderson for a block that stretched the lead to 22-19. Bunton's 10th kill gave Texas match point at 24-21, but TCU answered with two straight kills to make it 24-23. After a timeout, Stafford ended the match with her 12th kill, giving Texas another 25-23 set and the sweep.
Stafford led the Longhorns with 12 kills and added five digs, but Bunton produced the most efficient offensive night. The middle blocker finished with a career-high 10 kills while hitting .643 and added three blocks. Anderson also set several career highs, finishing with eight kills, two service aces and five digs while leading Texas with five total blocks.
Binney recorded her second consecutive double-double with 21 assists and 10 digs. Texas finished with 44 kills to TCU's 40 and held a modest advantage in hitting percentage, .169 to .124. The Longhorns also had four service aces compared with three for the Horned Frogs.
The numbers at the net favored TCU much more clearly. The Horned Frogs finished with 11 blocks to Texas' six, and freshman Kinsley Young made an immediate impact in her collegiate debut with seven blocks and five kills. Young's first contribution was a block that produced TCU's first point of the season, and she remained a problem for the Texas attack throughout the match.
Hendrix, an AVCA Player of the Year watch list selection, led TCU with 12 kills and extended her streak of double-digit kill matches to 23. Kelley added 10 kills and four blocks, while Gibson returned to the lineup after missing nearly a year with an ACL injury and finished with eight kills while hitting .375. Libero Alice Volpe anchored the defense with 16 digs.
For Texas, the result was notable less because of the sweep than because of how the Longhorns handled the late stages of all three sets. TCU reached set point first in the opener, held a late lead in the second and was within one point of extending the match in the third. Texas had to win the decisive rallies each time, and there was little margin for an extended mistake.
The match also represented another step forward after Texas split its opening weekend in Milwaukee. The Longhorns had struggled badly on offense in the loss to Arizona State before recovering to beat Marquette in five sets. Against TCU, the offensive percentage was still modest, but the Longhorns found enough production from Stafford, Bunton and Anderson to survive a strong blocking performance from the Horned Frogs.
TCU entered the season ranked No. 18 after consecutive 20-win seasons and was picked to finish second in the Big 12 preseason poll. The Horned Frogs also had three players selected to the preseason all-conference team, so the narrow margins were hardly surprising. The sweep looked comfortable only in the match score. On the floor, every set remained unsettled until the final few points.
That ability to close was the clearest difference. Texas did not dominate statistically, and TCU often controlled the net, but the Longhorns consistently found the point they needed when each set reached its most important stage. For a team still trying to establish rhythm early in the season, leaving Las Vegas with its first sweep provided a useful result before an even larger challenge against No. 1 Nebraska to finish the Players Era Volleyball Showcase.
University of Texas Volleyball
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