Sophomore outside hitter Abby Vander Wal left the court with a knee injury early in Texas volleyball\u2019s win over the TCU Horned Frogs in Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Following the Longhorn\u2019s game against Nebraska, Vander Wal has since been listed as out for the remainder of the season with an ACL tear, a devastating blow to a team with playoff aspirations and to a talented young career.<\/p>\n
Following the Longhorn\u2019s game against Nebraska, Vander Wal has since been listed as out for the remainder of the season with an ACL tear, as first reported by Lincoln Arneal of Huskers Illustrated. Vander Wal\u2019s injury is a devastating blow to a team with playoff aspirations and to a talented young career.<\/p>\n
In the two games before her injury, Vander Wal appeared in all nine sets, recording two service aces, six digs and 16 kills, 14 of which came in a much-needed victory against Marquette.<\/p>\n
This injury comes in the middle of Vander Wal attempting to build on an impactful freshman year after earning Southeastern Conference All-Freshman team honors. Vander Wal recorded 280 kills and 67 digs during her freshman campaign and started this season with a bigger role ahead.<\/p>\n
Vander Wal won the North, Central America and Caribbean Volleyball Confederation Pan American gold medal with the U.S. Women\u2019s U21 National Team over the summer and looks to bring championship experience to a Texas squad that was bounced in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament last season.<\/p>\n
Vander Wal is a big piece of the Longhorns\u2019 puzzle in 2026, projected as the third option before the season, and has shown real flashes of leadership capabilities through three games to start the 2026 campaign.<\/p>\n
With Vander Wal down for the season, more responsibility will fall on freshman outside hitter Henley Anderson. Anderson stepped up for Texas following Vander Wal\u2019s injury, racking up eight kills, five digs and two service aces.<\/p>\n
Texas will likely take the court for its home opener without Vander Wal this Wednesday in Gregory Gymnasium at 8 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sophomore outside hitter Abby Vander Wal left the court with a knee injury early in Texas volleyball\u2019s win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-421497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}