Fighting Ducks Reach Elite Eight

LOUISVILLE — Four years after winning a marathon Sweet Sixteen match and four weeks after a season-defining reverse sweep at Colorado, Oregon volleyball proved itself to be a team of Fighting Ducks once again Thursday.

Summoning the same grit they showed in upsetting Minnesota to reach the Elite Eight in 2018, and in fighting back from down 19-9 and staring at a four-set loss to the Buffaloes on the road Nov. 10, the Ducks fought off four match points with their season on the line Thursday to beat Nebraska in five sets. For the first time since that 2018 season, the UO women will play for an NCAA Tournament regional title.

Oregon dropped the opening set Thursday, won the second and lost the third. Nebraska rallied from behind in the fourth by scoring three straight points to lead 25-24, but the Ducks fought off match point. They did so again down 26-25, and again down 28-27. And again down 29-28.

“Were you not thinking about Minnesota?” UO coach Matt Ulmer said after the match to all-American Brooke Nuneviller, a freshman on Oregon’s 2018 team that used a marathon 41-39 win in set two against the Gophers to catapult them to a win in that year’s Sweet Sixteen. “I was like, we’re gonna be here all day again.”

It didn’t take quite that long, as Nuneviller got an overpass to find the floor for the set-four win Thursday at 32-30. The Ducks then raced out to a lead in set five, struggled to close out the match but finally did so on their seventh attempt at match point to win, 14-25, 26-24, 22-25, 32-30, 15-11.

Oregon will face regional host Louisville on Saturday, for a spot in the Final Four. The Ducks will look to make the national semifinals for the first time since 2012 — when they beat Nebraska in the Elite Eight to do so.

That regional final appearance by the Cornhuskers in 2012 began a streak of 10 straight Elite Eight appearances for the program. That streak ended Thursday at the hands of the Ducks.

“There’s so many student-athletes out there that just care about this so much, and it’s so hard to beat a team that wants in that bad,” Ulmer said. “Nebraska, they wanted it really bad — and so did we. It just set up to be a really great environment, a really great battle. And both teams showed up.”

Pac-12 freshman of the year Mimi Colyer led Oregon offensively with 26 kills, tied for the fourth-most in UO tournament history with Liz Brenner, during the 2012 run to the Final Four.  Nuneviller added 16 kills plus 15 digs, surpassing both 1,500 career kills…