The comeback fell just short.

No. 25 Oklahoma upset No. 8 Texas on Wednesday night in Norman. Although the Longhorns came back from a 2-0 deficit, the team could not finish the fifth set.

The 16-25, 20-25, 25-17, 26-24, 9-15 loss brought the Longhorns to an 8-4 overall record and a 1-1 record in Big 12 competition.

Although the loss was difficult for the Longhorns to swallow, freshman outside hitter Haley Eckerman had a career-best 20 kills. Senior middle blocker Rachael Adams had 14 kills and freshman outside hitter Khat Bell had 11 kills and 12 digs.

The Sooners took a 10-1 lead in the first set and never looked back. The Longhorns couldn’t get back in the set and lost 25-16.

In the second set, Oklahoma took the early lead again. The Longhorns had a 4-1 run and brought the score to 18-16. But it wasn’t enough and the Longhorns fell 25-20.

After a break between sets, the Longhorns came back on the court ready to fight. Two kills and a block by Bell helped the Longhorns gain a 11-4 lead. Eckerman’s fourth kill of the set ended the set 25-17.

The fourth set was much closer than the previous three with five lead changes. The Longhorns were leading halfway through the set, but gave up the lead and fell behind 17-14. But freshman Madelyn Hutson’s two kills brought the team back, and Texas kept the lead for the remainder of the set.

The fifth set was dominated by the Sooners. They took an 8-4 lead and refused to let go. Three kills from OU’s Suzy Boulavsky gave the Sooners to the lead, which they never gave up.

“The things that we’ve been working on in practice we’ve seen some great correlation happening and there’s a lot of areas we can continue to grow on,” said head coach Jerritt Elliott.

Earlier this week, he said this week of games would be brutal and that he would learn a lot about the team.

“Each team that we play has a different system so we are implementing a different blocking scheme, different defenses potential based on rotations and really learning a lot about this group and teaching them the little nuances about it,” Elliott said. 

Printed on Thursday, September 29, 2011 as: Longhorns unable to finish comeback against Sooners