Four years, four tournament appearances. One Sweet 16 run, two second-round appearances. An 86-34 record and four rounds of NCAA Tournament games. These are the accomplishments of a Kansas volleyball senior class that has left a big mark on a program on the rise.
Six Jayhawks — Caroline Bien, London Davis, Ayah Elnady, Toyosi Onabanjo, Bryn McGehe and Camryn Turner — played the last game of their college careers on Saturday in Kansas’ five-set loss to No. 6 Florida in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
This marks the second straight year in which, after a 15-13 loss in the fifth set, the Jayhawks have had to watch another team celebrate on their home court. While the result is disappointing, both head coach Ray Bechard and his players are proud of this team, this year and the lasting impact the senior group has had on the program.
“There’s some levels of disappointment. Obviously, the 15-13, we had a couple controllables there that we didn’t take care of,” Bechard said in his postgame presser. “But beyond that probably is the two young ladies who are joining me here (Bien and Davis), and the other four in the locker room who have elevated our program to a nationally prominent level, played their last match out there tonight. But I think we’ll forever be grateful for that group, what they did, and the fact that they gave us the opportunity to be in a moment like tonight.”
“Obviously it stings, and it’s going to take a while, I think, to digest that that was the last game we’ll ever play… but we just have to leave knowing that we were proud and that we left it all out there,” Davis said. “At the end of the day, a 15-13 loss could go either way. I mean, two points here and there, so it’s really hard. You can’t really, like I said, think about that, but it’s hard to process now.
“But in the grand scheme of it, in five years, this 15-13 is not what we’re going to look at. It’s going to be the season as a whole and what we had going throughout.”
The Jayhawks hosted the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament for the first two times since 2016 over the past two years. Both of these opportunities have led to tough second-round matchups for Kansas, first against an unranked 23-9 Penn State team that finished third in the Big 10 and was on an 8-2 run entering the tournament. This year, the Jayhawks faced a Florida team that struggled with injuries early and dropped a few late-season games to fall in the ranks, but the Gators were at full strength on Saturday night, as all the stars aligned for them at the right time.
Both Bechard and Florida head coach Mary Wise called the second-round matchup worthy of being a regional match based on the level of play from both teams and the fantastic environment that Horejsi Family Volleyball Arena provided.
“We put ourselves in the position to win the last two years for sure, against really, really good teams. And how about this Horejsi fan base?” Bechard said. “Holy cow. They really adopted this team over the last couple of years, and I know they provide a lot of joy for us. I think this team’s provided a lot of joy for them. It was how NCAA Tournament volleyball should be, I just wish it was a little bit later in the tournament.
“But we’ve got to continue to try to be, as top seed, right, continue to try to host, and maybe move up the leaderboard a little bit… But you know, you’re 25-5, 15-3 in a good league, beat seven teams that are in the NCAA Tournament, and you would just think that body of work would get another week with these guys, but it wasn’t meant to be.”
He noted the tough competition that the Jayhawks have faced in the first two rounds of the tournament in the past four years, as they also drew No. 19 Oregon in the first round in 2021 and No. 2 Nebraska in Lincoln for 2022’s second-round match. After these tests of adversity, Kansas was certainly hoping for a better outcome this time around.
“I will say I certainly didn’t think that was the outcome we were going to have,” Bien said. “I’d say I probably fully haven’t processed it yet, but yeah, we had that confidence throughout the entire game. Obviously, there were ups and downs, but I really didn’t think it would end that way. And I don’t know, I could sit in the locker room and think about this for a lot longer, and maybe eventually it would set in. But there’s nothing to hang our heads about. I’m proud of everything we’ve done, and I’m proud of what we did tonight.”
After losing four seniors last year, Kansas was able to keep things going in 2024 with this core group of six, but its absence will be difficult to recover from next season.
“There’s some people that have to step into (those roles), but certainly we created some opportunity for some underclassmen to do so. Our gym was a competitive gym every day in six-on-six drills, and I think that’s what allowed us to be the team we needed to be in moments like tonight,” Bechard said. “So we talk about grit, we talk about grace, we talk about contributing a little bit more than you consume. We talk about, ‘Are we going to find things or leave things a little bit better than we found it?’, and certainly the group who are leaving set a great example of all those things.”
Both Davis and Bien noted that the solemn nature of their postgame locker room was broken by underclassmen who were encouraging their teammates, reflecting on the year behind them, and preparing for new leadership roles in the upcoming year.
“It was really cool to see the underclassmen kind of stepping up and kind of appreciating just what we’ve done for them, the role models that we’ve been, and I think we’re leaving the program in good hands,” Bien said. “They loved having us and they loved watching us be role models. So I’m not really worried for the future of Kansas volleyball. They all have the heart, they all have the drive. And what we’ve done this year, I mean, they’re going to continue to do great things.”
“You come in as a freshman, you look at the seniors and it’s like, ‘Whoa, how am I going to be that one day?’ And then you blink, and you’re there,” Davis said. “But just like listening to them speak, the program is going to be just fine. I think we’ve taught them what to do off the court, but I think at the end of the day, they were doing the talking now, but really it was them all season lifting us up.”
Mike Gunnoe/Special to the Journal-World
