North Texas Daily

In all five sets, North Texas found itself trailing by at least three points before one team even hit 10 on the scoreboard.

In the first and third sets, the Mean Green were able to overcome the early deficit. But in the end, North Texas was unable to recreate the magic of a comeback for the third time.

The Mean Green’s historic season ended Friday night at home in a five-set loss to Texas Christian University (24-26, 25-21. 23-25, 25-23, 15-10).

“It was a well fought match,” head coach Andrew Palileo said. “Both teams got a chance to sneak [a set] out. Us in the third set and them in the fourth. We just couldn’t stop some of the things they were doing and they were doing a good job blocking as well.”

In the third set, the Mean Green (29-4, 13-1) trailed the Horned Frogs 20-15 before storming back and winning the set. While in the fourth set, TCU (14-16, 4-8) fell behind 22-20 and pulled out that set to force a decisive fifth.

The North Texas defense was not up to its usual standards as it only had seven blocks on the night and eight less digs than the Horned Frogs.

“We were off tonight as far as blocking goes,” senior outside hitter Alexis Wright said. “Usually, if our block doesn’t touch it our defense will pick it up but it took us a while to get in the groove of it. 

The Mean Green offense struggled more than usual as well, finishing the game with a .193 attack percentage.

The seniors had good outings overall as middle blocker Holly Milam finished with 14 kills on a team-high .278 attack percentage. Fellow middle blocker Amanda Chamberlain nine kills and two solo blocks. Finally, Wright had 14 kills, most of which came in the later sets as she kept the Mean Green in the game for extended periods of time.

“I think that started last night,” junior setter Karley York said. “We struggled to find a rhythm all day yesterday so it’s hard to just turn that on.”

The Horned Frogs ended up with a .238 attack percentage and were led by junior middle blocker Anna Walsh, who had 25 kills on a .452 attack percentage.

“When their middle goes off for what she did it really opens up the pins and that’s what it did,” Palileo said. “They did a good job running it and we couldn’t block it so we tried to defend it and we didn’t do it consistently enough.”

North Texas finishes its season at home with a loss to a Big 12 school in five sets after breaking all kinds of records this season. 

The team knows this season was special, even when just compared to last year.

“It’s completely different from last year,” York said. “Last year when we lost we were kind of like ‘This has been the longest season’, but this season blinked because we were having so much fun together.”

Featured Image: North Texas volleyball setter Karley York reflects on what’s been a record-setting season for the Mean Green. Madison Gore