PROVO — Utah senior Brianna Doehrmann was bound and determined not to have her remarkable career end the way it was headed on Friday.
Not a chance.
Matched up against Illinois in the first round of the NCAA tournament, the Utes had just blown their second set in a row, heading into a potential elimination if things didn’t turn around in the fourth.
“Bri said, ‘Our season is not ending here,’ and it just clicked with all us. We just kind of went into business mode,” said Utah senior Dani Drews regarding her teammates’ words.
Turns out Doehrmann’s words were headed, with Utah moving on to take the next two sets to come away with a very well-earned five-set win (25-23, 26-24, 27-25, 25-23, 15-10).
Helping out Utah’s turnaround was the fact it’s been there before, battling in a tough Pac-12 Conference where more than several teams tested Utah’s resolve to the extreme.
“It was probably a match indicative of our season,” said Utah coach Beth Launiere of Friday’s win. “We’ve certainly had a lot of five-setters this year, and I felt this team stayed confident. We were definitely in a little trouble for a while, but I thought we just really kept battling.”
And Illinois is no slouch, and proved as much throughout Friday’s thriller. Having made it clear to the NCAA final four last season, the Illini looked the part from the outset. But Utah hung in with both teams battling back and forth as hard as the final score would indicate.
The Utes took control early in the first set before Illinois closed late to lose by just two points. Utah continued to take control early in both the second and third sets, although mental errors and flat-out inspired play by Illinois dealt Launiere’s team two tough set losses.
“I’d be lying if I said that we didn’t need to do something different. The wheels were spinning a little for us,” Launiere said.
The second set saw Utah stage big comeback midway through to set up set point late, up 24-23. That point never came, however, as Illinois took the set 26-24.
The third set probably spun proverbial wheels even more, with the Utes wasting a comfortable 18-15 lead late and another set point, giving Illinois a demoralizing 27-25 set win.
But enter Doehrmann and her words of inspiration leading into the fourth set, noting to her team they were capable of playing a lot better.
“Sometimes we just made mental errors and unforced errors, and we just talked about the mentality of ‘what’s next?’” Doerhmann said.
In other words: Get over what’s happened and get back to the form the Utes have showed most of the year.
The fourth set was close throughout, although Utah managed to eliminate mistakes late and take a hotly-contested 25-23 set win, leading into a tiebreaker that had a bit of a different feel on the Ute bench.
“I was confident we were going to get that fifth set, and you could just feel the vibe of the team, and the vibe was really amazing,” Doehrmann said.
Utah wasted little time putting its mark on the fifth set, leading throughout to take a 15-10 win for the match.
Leading the way, as she often does, was Drews, who not only finished with a match-high 27 kills but an all-time season kills record for the Utes (635.) Doehrmann finished with 21 digs from her libero position, giving her a Utah all-time mark with 1,624.
With the win, Utah advances to the second round where it will take on No. 14 seed BYU Saturday night at the Smith Fieldhouse.