Hey, Paige Tapp, you're playing in the NCAA Division I volleyball Final Four this week.
You must be having a blast, right? Enjoying hanging out with teammates, being on the last road trip of your junior season at the University of Minnesota and preparing for a national semifinal match against Texas?
"(Wednesday), I woke up at 6 a.m., took a final (exam), came to practice, and then I'll go back to the hotel and take another one," said Tapp, a Gophers junior and a Stewartville native. "It's pretty busy. All of us have finals this week or next week. We're just trying to stay on top of it and focus on Texas."
That focus has helped the Gophers (30-4), the No. 2 overall seed in the NCAA Division I volleyball tournament, reach the Final Four for the first time since 2009 and the fourth time in program history.
The focus and intensity is helpful, to be sure, but it doesn't hurt to have the Big Ten Player of the Year and a First Team All-American lining up as your outside hitter.
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The Gophers are led into tonight's 6 p.m. matchup at Omaha's CenturyLink Center, against Texas (29-2, the No. 3 overall seed in the tournament) by 6-foot-1 senior Daly Santana. The Corozai, Puerto Rico, native is seventh in school history in kills (1,623), eighth in aces (182) and ninth in digs (1,270).
Minnesota will need every bit of her six-rotation ability this weekend if it hopes to bring home the program's first national championship.
"She's going to take a majority of their swings," Texas head coach Jerritt Elliott said. "Obviously, you'd like to do a good job managing those swings and contain her to a certain level.
"Minnesota has a system where it's still hard to be able to trap, given the speed they play at. It's the fastest go-set in the NCAA, that we've seen, at least. They're on point."
Texas has five All-Americans in its lineup, led by Amy Neal, a 5-foot-9 senior hitter, who has team-highs in kills (447) and aces (49).
"They're a great team. They compete really well," Santana said of the Longhorns, "but so do we. We know the plan. We know what we're going to bring (today). It will be a great match."
A 180-degree turnaround
At this time a year ago, the Final Four was an afterthought to the Gophers. Their priority was figuring out how to get back to the national tournament. They had been there every year since 1999, but a 19-12 season wasn't good enough to earn a national-tournament berth.
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"There's no magic, there's just hard work," Gophers head coach Hugh McCutcheon said. "This group has developed a capacity for hard work and matched that with a commitment to the process, to learning, to improvement."
Despite that commitment, Minnesota got off to a slow start this season, losing back-to-back matches to Texas A&M and Stanford in the season-opening Stanford Invitational. But the Gophers' mental toughness showed in the following weeks, as they went on a nine-match winning streak and won 26 of their final 28 regular-season matches.
"It's definitely something that doesn't happen overnight," Tapp said of the team's turnaround. "Every person on this team was ready to work hard every single day. That's what we've done for the past year and it's paid off.
A Midwestern feel
The stands at the CenturyLink Center are expected to be painted red this weekend, with Nebraska in the Final Four field. The Cornhuskers (30-4) will face Kansas (30-2) in tonight's second national semifinal, scheduled to begin at 8:30.
Both national semifinals and Saturday's 6:30 p.m. national championship will be televised on ESPN2.
In a sport that was once dominated by West Coast schools, the coaches at this year's Final Four take pride in having their programs playing on the biggest stage.
"It speaks to the increased parity of volleyball," McCutcheon said. "There are good teams all over the country now. At one point it was a little West Coast dominated, but there are great volleyball players and programs everywhere."
