By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
It's hard for Louisville volleyball star Amaya Tillman not to think about the NCAA Final Four semifinal loss that ended a dream 2021 season for the Cardinals.
But as the days go by, the former Shawnee Heights state champion thinks more about what an incredible run the Cardinals had.
Louisville ran off 32 straight victories to advance to the Final Four before the Cardinals dropped a heartbreaking five-set decision to eventual NCAA national champion Wisconsin.
"I definitely still think about it, not as much as I did right after we lost, but when I think about it now I think back more on the experience and just how surreal it all was,'' said Tillman, a 6-foot-3 junior middle blocker. "As a kid I went to volleyball Final Fours and all the NCAA Tournament games and now that I'm in that and being there it was a great experience and I'll forever remember it. So now I don't look back on it as we lost, I just look at all the great moments with my team and being able to have that opportunity.''
Amaya Tillman
And the fact that the Cardinals came within just two wins of a perfect season while winning Atlantic Coast Conference and East regional championships was obviously a highlight.
"It was so cool,'' Tillman said. "I remember throughout the season I was like, 'Are we really going to go undefeated ?' '' Tillman said. "It was kind of unbelievable just being in that moment. Of course it would have been great to go all the way undefeated, but just being able to say that the only loss was to the national champion, that's pretty cool.''
Tillman, who has two years of eligibility remaining, was a key part of Louisville's success, earning first-team All-East Region honors while also being named to the All-ACC second team for the second straight year.
Louisville middle blocker Amaya Tillman (right), a Shawnee Heights graduate, helped lead Louisville to a 32-1 record and the NCAA Final Four this past fall. [Photo by Louisville Athletics]
Tillman, who was the ACC Defensive Player of the Year in 2020, ranked among the NCAA national leaders with 149 blocks while also registering 213 kills.
With every year that goes by Tillman feels better and better about her decision to attend Louisville.
"Going in as a freshman three years ago was really intimidating and I was one of my coach Dani Busboom Kelly's first commits since she was a new coach,'' Tillman said. "I just had a lot of trust in her and a lot of trust in the program and thankfully I did because my freshman year we made it to the Elite Eight, my sophomore year we made it to the Sweet 16 and then this year the Final Four, so it's been everything I ever hoped for.''
Tillman is on track to earn her bachelor's degree in May, will work on her master's during her final two seasons with the Cardinals, and said she is excited about Louisville's future.
"We have quite a few players coming back,'' Tillman said. "We lost a lot of seniors, but we're getting quite a few freshmen and we just had a big team in general. This past year we had a team of 19 and that's pretty big for a volleyball team, so just in general our team's pretty deep and I think we'll be good no matter what.''
Tillman's success at Louisville has come on the heels of an outstanding career at Shawnee Heights, which included a Class 5A state championship her sophomore season in 2016.
Tillman's T-Bird teammates included Jazz Sweet, who helped Nebraska win a national championship, Megan Cooney, who played in the Final Four for Illinois, and Faith Rottinghaus, who earned All-America honors for Washburn this past season while helping lead the Ichabods to the Division II championship match.
"I still talk to all of them and I congratulated Faith when she made it to the national championship game,'' Tillman said. "That's cool seeing Washburn do that here in Topeka.
"In high school I feel like it was just pretty obvious that we were a pretty special group and I think it's really cool now that we're older just to see everyone going on and doing great things. It all kind of ties back to high school when we played together and I'm so thankful that I had that experience in high school because I played with some of the best.''
