MINNEAPOLIS -- Most of the sellout crowd of 5,392 packing the Sports Pavilion for Saturday night's NCAA regional final eagerly anticipated yet another victory by a Minnesota volleyball team that hadn't lost at home for more than two years.
Yet five minutes into the match, against UCLA, the Gophers were in trouble. The Bruins jumped to a 6-0 lead, scoring three points on tips -- little finesse shots over the outstretched hands of Minnesota blockers that fell harmlessly to the floor behind them.
In the last month the Gophers often found themselves in tough spots, especially that stretch of four consecutive five-set matches against ranked teams to close the Big Ten Conference season. Each time, with help from their coaches, the Gophers coolly corrected mistakes, puzzled out solutions and recovered to win the match.
Saturday the Gophers gradually reeled the Bruins back, took their first lead at 21-20 with a run of four consecutive points, then prevailed 25-23, as six players combined on 14 kills. Big Ten Player of the Year Sarah Wilhite added nine kills and four digs in the 25-20 second-set victory. And in Set 3, setter Samantha Seliger-Swenson's 14 assists helped close out the match, 25-22. With that, the Gophers advanced to their second consecutive final four.
"I thought they did a great job of slowly coming back," UCLA coach Michael Sealy said. "It's not like they went on an eight-point run. It was two points and a side-out, one point and a side-out. So in the course of about three or four rotations, that turned into a two-point lead. They're a good team."
The night before, facing Missouri in the regional semifinal, Minnesota lost the second set 25-21 before finishing off the Tigers in four. The Gophers won with contributions across the board: Five players with at least 10 kills, and four others with at least 10 digs. And their hitting percentage improved with each set, from .244 in Set 1 to a stunning .667 in Set 4.
"What makes them so good is the balance they have," Missouri coach Wayne Kreklow said. "The more balance you have, the harder you are to beat."
Can balance and resourcefulness deliver Minnesota (29-4) its first NCAA title? The second-seeded Gophers head for Columbus reasonably sure they can handle anything thrown at them. "I don't think there's anybody out there they're not capable of beating," Kreklow said.
Minnesota showed that with its Nov. 23 comeback against top-ranked Nebraska. The Gophers lost the first two sets and trailed 23-20 in the third, at home. Minnesota scored the next four points to go ahead; fought off match point at 24-25 before going on to win 28-26; then won the next two sets 25-17 and 17-15 to steal the match.
"There was a point in that fifth set and I think we just looked to each other and we said, 'We have no doubt right now,'" said Seliger-Swenson, a sophomore and the Big Ten's setter of the year. "We believe in each other so much, and that really helps us in those tough moments in matches when it's really close. I think that's something that's really special about this team."
Four seniors -- Wilhite, hitting/blocking twins Paige and Hannah Tapp and defensive specialist Katie Schau -- carry the leadership burden while Seliger-Swenson and others pitch in. Junior middle blocker Molly Lohman, freshman outside hitter Alexis Hart, junior libero Dalianliz Rosado and junior backliner Alyssa Goehner contributed dazzling moments in Minnesota's four NCAA tournament victories. It doesn't all fall on Wilhite.
"Something we've always talked about is that our strength is in our unity," Wilhite said. "I think that's really helped me take outside pressures and expectations and keep them out of the picture because I turn to my teammates in those tough moments instead of putting it all on myself."
That, Kreklow said, makes the Gophers particularly tough.
"It's so hard because they've got so many options," he said. "If you slow one down, they go to somebody else. You slow them down, and they go to a third person. Their setter does a great job of delivering the ball, moving it around, finding the right person at the right time."
This will be Minnesota's fifth final four appearance and second under Hugh McCutcheon, the two-time U.S. Olympic coach who took over the program in 2012. Only once did the Gophers advance to the championship match, losing in 2004 to Stanford, their opponent in Thursday's semifinal. Last year Texas eliminated the Gophers in four sets, with all but the last decided by two points.
McCutcheon believes those tense final Big Ten matches toughened up his team for postseason.
"The biggest thing to me is to adjust in-match to different things that are going on," McCutcheon said. "We've had people try to attack us a lot of different ways, try to defend us a lot of different ways, and yet we're still able to pick the lock and figure out how to win the next point. I think that's the rare quality.
"Now, whether that means we're as good as we can be in Columbus, who knows? I personally think the team is well prepared. We're in a good space. But time will tell."