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What a way to cap off the first season in the new arena.
The volleyball team won the NCAA regional tournament for the first time in school history Sunday, defeating top-seeded St. Olaf in straight sets.
“It’s absolutely amazing,” senior Tori Jones said. “It’s just unreal.”
St. Thomas rode outstanding performances by seniors Jones, Katie Bonine, Emily Foster and Jill Osborne during the win. It will be St. Thomas’ first volleyball appearance in the national tournament. Foster was named the regional tournament’s most valuable player and had all 43 of the team’s assists Sunday.
“It’s great to see everyone play well when we should be,” Foster said. “These past two weeks we’ve all really toughened up.”
No one was tougher than Bonine Sunday. She racked up 12 kills against the Oles to cap off a weekend performance that landed her on the all-tournament team. Osborne, who put up eight kills Sunday, also made the all-tournament team.
“We were a team the whole time,” Osborne said. “We were never six individuals out there.”
Sophomore Nicole Potts had 10 kills, one of which put the exclamation point on a first-game comeback late in the game. Potts slammed down a set from Foster to cap off the comeback, close out the first set 25-20 and send the St. Thomas fans into a frenzy.
“It was definitely a great atmosphere,” Jones said.
The second game went back and forth with nine ties and three lead changes. St. Thomas had chances to close it out with game points at 24-23 and 25-24, but was unable to capitalize. But at 26-25, Foster came up with her only block at the perfect time. She found herself matched up one-on-one with a St. Olaf hitter and rose up to reject the kill, giving St. Thomas the 27-25 win.
“You just do your thing,” Foster said. “You just play hard.”
St. Olaf didn’t put up much of a fight in the third game. St. Thomas jumped ahead early and rode a big rally all the way to the match-clinching and tournament-winning point, taking the set 25-14.
“We worked our butts off and we believed the whole time we could do it,” Osborne said.
As if the regional championship wasn’t sweet enough, St. Thomas punched its ticket to the national quarter finals by beating a St. Olaf team that defeated the Tommies twice earlier this season. In six sets throughout the year against St. Olaf, St. Thomas had come out on top in only one. But in their biggest match of the year, the Tommies put history aside and punished St. Olaf in Shoenecker Arena.
“It’s so great [to beat St. Olaf],” Osborne said. “We knew we could do it every time we played them.”
St. Thomas picked the right time to do it. The team earned its way to the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament Nov. 19 at Washington University in St. Louis.
Jordan Osterman can be reached at jrosterman@stthomas.edu.