Pac 12 | Huskies featured on Pac-12 Networks' "Top Matches"

5-set home victories against Utah and Oregon make the networks' "12 Best of  2012" List


On November 4--a Sunday--Utah went up 2-0 against then-#8 Washington. It was an ominous score: a Jim McLaughlin-coached team had never come back to win a match at Hec Ed Pavilion after losing the two first sets.

Pac-12 Network feature about Washington's 3-2 victory against Utah

Backs to the wall, UW's front line responded, particularly Krista Vansant and Amanda Gil, as the Huskies refused to quit.

That historic comeback, a 3-2 Washington win, is judged by the Pac-12 Networks to be the 8th-best match of the 2012 Pac-12 season. The networks' feature is available, for now, online.

We can't find links to the other stories in the series, but we understand that the networks ranked Oregon's NCAA semifinal victory over Penn State #1 for the season; all the other "bests," involved two Pac-12 schools playing each other. We saw the Oregon/Penn State match in person in Louisville, and have to admit wasn't as impressive as Oregon's win at Nebraska the previous week (which we also witnessed.)

And, frankly, neither match could hold a candle to the contest ranked #2 on the list: Washington's extraordinary November 16 home win against #4 Oregon. The Huskies overcame thirteen match points in what we described at the time as "one of the most gripping, entertaining and meaningful sporting events in the long history of Hec Ed Pavilion." [Forgotten the details of this amazing contest? Here's the story ...]

Sorry, Pac-12 Networks ...

By the way, if you didn't see the Washington/Oregon match in person, you didn't see it at all. That week, the Pac-12 Networks inexplicably decided not to carry any volleyball matches at all. Instead, it ran meaningless preseason men's basketball games, including gems like Sacramento State at Utah and Vanderbilt at Oregon.

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coming this December ...