USC Volleyball Makes Spotless Return to Top

Behind a dominating performance by Keao Burdine, USC’s women’s volleyball team capped an undefeated season by defeating Florida, 25-30, 30-27, 30-19, 30-26, in the NCAA championship match Saturday before 7,261 at Reunion Arena in Dallas.

It was the second consecutive national title for USC (35-0), which extended its NCAA-record win streak to 47 matches. The Trojan women, who have won four national titles overall, became the third team to go undefeated in NCAA history and the first repeat champion to go without a loss.

“Well, there are only two other teams that have gone undefeated,” said USC Coach Mick Haley, who has two national titles with the Trojans and one at Texas. “I don’t think they can do it much better, as far as I’m concerned.”

After landing only three kills in 11 swings in the first game, Burdine drilled a match-high 23 with only five errors for a .300 hitting percentage. April Ross and Bibiana Candelas each had 14 kills, and setter Toni Anderson had 56 assists as the Trojans recorded better numbers than Florida in all offensive areas.

The Trojans wore down Florida (36-2) after losing the first game. USC took control of the match in the third game when it used a run of six consecutive points to break a 13-13 tie and had another 6-2 run later in the game to grab a 2-1 advantage.

“We realized our game plan at the beginning of the first game,” Florida senior Aury Cruz said. “We just kept with the game plan, but we could not handle their runs later. We let them have stretches that made it hard for us to catch up.”

Said Haley: “Any time you can get a run like that, it really takes the heart out of opponents.”

Florida was playing in its first title match and it immediately put USC on the defensive in the opening game. The Gators -- whose only two losses came to the Trojans -- took a 12-5 lead and held on as they committed only five hitting errors.

Cruz had 18 kills, Jane Collymore had 15 and Jacque Robinson 14, but the Gators’ errors would begin to pile up as they tried to hit past USC’s 6-foot-5 Candelas, 6-5 Emily Adams and 6-3 Katie Olsovsky.

If the Gators got past the front line, Ross, Burdine and Nicole Davis were there to dig out repeated blasts. USC finished with a 73-64 advantage in digs and forced 30 Florida hitting errors.

The Trojans grabbed an early lead in Game 4 and didn’t allow any long runs as Candelas finished the match with a clean kill to set off the title celebration.

“Florida is great,” Haley said. “They played as hard as they could play. There’s no question that once we were challenged, the light bulb came on.

“I can’t say enough about Burdine and Ross. They just carried us.”

Florida Coach Mary Wise said USC’s advantages in size and depth proved too much.

“They’re one terrific team and well-coached with a ton of talent,” Wise said. “I thought our effort was great, our size wasn’t.”

Ross, who played in three Final Fours in her four-year career, said the strain of fulfilling expectations made this championship more rewarding.

“This year, it has been more meaningful,” she said. “It has been harder, and we have gone through more trials with everyone out to get us. I personally feel we accomplished so much more this year.”

*

NCAA news services contributed to this report.