Gophers volleyball survives upset scare from Western Kentucky in NCAA tournament

At least one prominent NCAA tournament bracket picker thought the Gophers volleyball team would fall prey to an upset in the first round Thursday against Western Kentucky.

Gophers coach Keegan Cook and his players didn’t need to see any predictions to be on upset alert. A close call in the first set and losing the third helped remind them an early exit wasn’t far-fetched.

After being in danger of getting tied up in the match, the sixth-seeded Gophers pulled away down the stretch in the fourth set to advance with a 25-22, 25-20, 19-25, 25-23 victory against the Hilltoppers in Lexington, Ky.

“Feel fortunate to coach these guys another night,” Cook said in the postgame news conference. “But I’m as dissatisfied as I could be with an NCAA tournament win and they know that. I’m fortunate that I can tell them that and they’re mature enough to handle it and be ready for the next match.”

The Gophers (21-10) ended the Conference USA champion’s 24-match win streak to advance to the NCAA second round for the 10th consecutive season. They will play at 6:30 p.m. CT Friday against host and third-seeded Kentucky.

“Western Kentucky’s a great team,” junior Julia Hanson said postgame on the TV broadcast. “You can never count out the Gophers. At Illinois, we were also down a lot. We come back because we’re never out of it. Just one point at a time.”

In the decisive fourth set, Hanson led her team on a critical 5-0 run with her serving to get back into the game. Despite being down 23-21 late, the Gophers scored the final four points, ending with an emphatic block from Lydia Grote to escape and play another day.

Western Kentucky (28-7) controlled most of the third set late when it scored seven consecutive points to keep from getting swept.

Around the same time Thursday, Loyola Chicago upset No. 5 BYU in a sweep in West Lafayette, Ind., which was the first tournament shocker. There were early signs the Gophers were in for a fight early as well.

Trailing 19-16 in the first set, the Gophers used Calissa Minatee’s only two kills of the set and her block to spark a 9-3 run for the opening win to regain momentum in the match.

In the second set, Minnesota broke away from a 5-5 tie with eight of nine points, including the first two kills from Mckenna Wucherer, who finished with nine in the match. Cook called a timeout when Western Kentucky pulled within 24-20, but Grote finished off the set by slamming down her seventh kill of the night.

After playing one of the strongest schedules in the country, the Gophers were more battle-tested entering Thursday, having 10 matches against top-25 teams this season. They were one of only nine teams nationally with at least two top-10 victories (beating Texas and Wisconsin).

A three-match win streak going into the NCAAs wasn’t enough to help the Gophers host the first two rounds for the first time since 2022, but they were motivated to go further than last year.

The Gophers rallied to keep the program’s NCAA tourney streak alive in Cook’s first season, but they couldn’t get past Creighton in the second-round loss in Omaha. This year’s Minnesota team had more chemistry and confidence playing together, so the players didn’t want this season to end Thursday night.

Western Kentucky wasn’t afraid of its Big Ten foe, having played tough matches against Kentucky, Illinois and Michigan State this season.