KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Texas A&M volleyball program had never appeared on a stage like the one it graced Thursday night at T-Mobile Arena, playing for a spot in the national championship match.
Pitt, meanwhile, had been here in a semifinal four times in the past four seasons.
So much for the importance of big-match experience.
The upstart Aggies rolled past the battle-tested Panthers, 29-27, 25-21, 25-20. Four days after Texas A&M upset No. 1-ranked Nebraska on its home court, coach Jamie Morrison’s team took its game up a notch.
It will face Kentucky on Sunday in an all-SEC final. The Wildcats (30-2) outlasted Wisconsin in five sets, winning the fifth 15-13 in the second semifinal.
A&M (28-4) earned a No. 3 regional seed in the 64-team tournament and needed five sets against Louisville in the regional semifinal — and five more to dispatch the previously unbeaten Huskers.
On Thursday, the Aggies swept the Panthers, one of four top seeds in regional play, behind the relentless attack of Ifenna Cos-Okpalla in the middle, Kyndal Stowers on the left pin and Logan Lednicky on the right.
“Literally, why not us?” Lednicky said. “We are considered the underdog in a lot of these moments, just because we haven’t been here before. But we know we have all the right pieces.”
Cos-Okpalla slammed the final kill against the Panthers on Thursday to secure a fifth loss in the national semifinal round since 2021 for Pitt (30-5). Cos-Okpalla, a first-team All-American, finished with eight terminations on a lethal .538 hitting efficiency.
Lednicky recorded 14 kills. Stowers had 16, including nine on .750 hitting in the marathon first set.
Stowers notched two kills among the clinching 3-0 run for the Aggies after Pitt took a 27-26 lead on a kill by Olivia Babcock, the reigning AVCA player of the year, in that tone-setting first set.
So, how was Stowers feeling?
“Every time someone asks me, genuinely, I have no idea,” the sophomore transfer from Baylor said. “I have no idea. Pure gratitude. This is crazy. This is an absolutely crazy experience. We have had faith in ourselves all year. From the first game of the season, we knew we were capable of this.
“Now living it, it’s like, ‘Wow, this is insane.’ It’s really cool.”
The Aggies split two matches this season against Texas, a No. 1 regional seed. Another top seed, Kentucky, beat Texas A&M in their only matchup. Morrison has encouraged the Aggies simply to be themselves on the big stage.
They’ve had practice.
“The more we’re in it,” he said, “the more we get comfortable (and) the more we’re used to being ourselves.”
It works.
“Just be us,” Cos-Okpalla said. “Not only just us as a team, us as individuals.”
Morrison, 45, took over the Aggies in 2023 after he spent much of his coaching career as an assistant with the U.S. men’s and women’s national teams.
He directed A&M to the NCAA Tournament in his first year, then to the Sweet 16 last season.
It’s in position to win a national championship, Morrison said, because his players bought into what he teaches.
They didn’t pick A&M for the promise of name, image and likeness riches. In addition to Cos-Okpalla, Stowers and Lednicky received second-team All-America recognition this week. Setter Maddie Waak was a third-team selection.
“These girls came here for nothing,” said Morrison, named Wednesday as the AVCA coach of the year. “Really, they came here because they love the school, they love the institution. They wanted to be developed.”
Before this fifth semifinal loss in five years, Pitt lost twice in this round against ACC rival Louisville and twice against Nebraska.
The Panthers mounted an 8-0 run in the second set to take a 15-11 lead before A&M responded with a 9-2 run. In the third set, the Aggies scored the final 4 points after the last of Babcock’s match-high 22 kills brought Pitt to within 1 point.
