After sweeping the University of Toledo in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday, the energy was high in Wilkinson Hall as Indiana volleyball picked up its first NCAA Tournament win in 15 years.
However, the celebration was short lived, as the Hoosiers had less than a 24-hour turnaround to prepare for their next opponent in No. 5-seeded University of Colorado Boulder.
Yet the quick turnaround didn’t seem to slow Indiana down. In fact, the Cream and Crimson carried the winning energy into Friday’s match, delivering a highly potent offensive performance to sweep Colorado at Wilkinson Hall in Bloomington.
The Buffaloes were unable to find a solution to the Hoosiers’ efficient and dominant offensive performance.
Indiana had offensive contributions from all sides. Every designated attacker who picked up minutes on the floor recorded at least one kill in the match. The Hoosiers’ pin hitters in freshman Jaidyn Jager and seniors Candela Alonso-Corcelles and Avry Tatum were the leaders of the offense, however.
“I think Indiana particularly runs really, really fast offense, especially to the left,” Colorado head coach Jesse Mahoney said postgame. “We tried to simulate it as much as we could in practice, but not to the effect we would like. We just couldn’t slow down their two left side hitters.”
Those two left side hitters were none other than Jager and Alonso-Corcelles.
Alonso-Corcelles recorded a 16-kill night and held a .556 hitting percentage, while committing just one error throughout the match. Her performance was the first time a true left-side attacker at Indiana recorded a match with at least 16 kills, one or fewer errors and a hitting percentage over .500 since the beginning of the 25-point rally scoring era.
“She’s a pro,” Indiana head coach Steve Aird said. “She came here, she developed and she’s one of the best outside hitters in the country.”
While Alonso-Corcelles may have led the way with 16 kills, Jager was not far behind. The freshman tallied 15 kills and recorded just three errors throughout the contest. The performance became her eighth match with at least 15 kills this season. Jager now ranks third among Indiana freshman in total kills in a single season with 374.
“This is one of the best players in the country as a freshman, full stop,” Aird said. “She won’t say it because she’s a team kid, but we don’t have any success this year without her being neon great. She’s a better kid than she is a player, and it’s a honor to coach her.”
Overall, Indiana held a .378 attacking percentage. Tatum added eight kills of her own with an attacking percentage of .235. Middle blockers freshman Victoria Gray and senior Madi Sell added two, as well. Freshman setter Teodora Kričković and graduate student outside hitter Jessica Smith each recorded a kill.
It was an all-around team performance that got the Hoosiers the win and advanced them to just their second ever NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 appearances in program history — the first coming in 2010. The win also pushed Indiana to 25 wins on the season — extending a NCAA era program record for single-season victories.
The Hoosiers will look to extend their historic season in the NCAA Tournament regional semifinals Dec. 11-12 when they face the winner of No. 8-seeded Penn State and No. 1-seeded University of Texas at Austin. Those two teams are set to face off at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Follow reporters Savannah Slone (@savrivers06 and srslone@iu.edu) and Kasey Watkins (@KaseyWatki8773 and kaslwatk@iu.edu) for updates throughout the Indiana volleyball season.
