Louisville volleyball tops Georgia Tech to earn program’s first Final Four trip

For the first time in program history, the Louisville volleyball team is headed to the Final Four.

The top-seeded and undefeated Cardinals punched their ticket to Columbus with a four-set (25-18, 21-25, 25-21, 25-20) win over No. 8 seed Georgia Tech in front of a raucous home crowd at Freedom Hall. The dropped set was the first in the NCAA tournament for U of L, which swept both its regular season meetings against the talented Yellow Jackets. Louisville has lost just 12 sets all season.

Louisville senior setter Tori Dilfer was named the regional’s Most Valuable Player.

The Cards will now face No. 4 seed Wisconsin in the national semifinals next Thursday, Dec. 16 at Nationwide Arena in Columbus. No. 3 seed Pittsburgh and No. 10 seed Nebraska — two squads Louisville has already defeated this season — will play in the other semifinal. The national championship match will take place next Saturday.

The ACC had sent just two teams to the volleyball Final Four before this season. With Louisville and Pitt both advancing on Saturday, they’ve now doubled that total, and it could have been even more had Georgia Tech not been forced to run into U of L.

Louisville now finds itself just two wins away from becoming the sport’s first undefeated national champion since Penn State ran the table in 2009.

Once again, a monster thanks to all the ladies for getting the job done this evening and giving us a strong jolt of something positive to take our minds off of all ... you know ... the other stuff.

Also once again, Dani Busboom-Kelly for AD/President.