AUSTIN – The best season in the NCAA Division I program history of The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) volleyball team is over after a 0-3 (14-25, 16-25, 17-25) loss to No. 4 Texas in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday at Gregory Gym.
 
UTRGV (21-14) finishes the season with the most wins and highest winning percentage (.600) in NCAA DI program history.
 
Sophomore Ragni Steen Knudsen led UTRGV with eight kills and nine digs. Junior Bojana Mitrovic finished with seven kills and three blocks. Sophomore Alexandra Ecker posted five kills on .455 hitting.
 
Senior Alisha Watson recorded five kills to finish her career with 1,101 kills, the fifth-highest total in NCAA DI program history.
 
Yazzie Bedart-Ghani led Texas (23-4) with 13 kills on .929 hitting. Paulina P Cerame recorded 10 kills on .346 hitting.
 
Texas jumped out to a 5-1 first set lead, but a block by Mitrovic and senior Joanna Boronczyk helped UTRGV score three-straight to pull within 4-5. UTRGV tied the set at 7 on a Watson kill, before Texas responded by scoring the next six points as part of an 11-2 run to go up 18-9 and push the set out or reach.
 
Texas jumped out to an 11-4 lead in the second set. The teams traded points from there, with UTRGV pulling within six points eight times, including at 12-18 on a Knudsen kill. Texas responded by scoring the next three to go up 21-12 on a Bedart-Ghani kill en route to taking a 2-0 lead in the match.
 
Texas took a 14-7 lead in the third set, but a Mitrovic kill, an error and a Knudsen ace allowed UTRGV to score three in a row to pull within four. UTRGV again pulled within four at 12-16 on a block by Mitrovic and Boronczyk, and 14-18 on an ace by junior Dubravka Vukoja, but that's as close as UTRGV got.

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