Incoming Freshmen Butler and Zelon Arrive at Texas a Semester Early

  1 Braden Keith | February 02nd, 2017 | Big 12, College - Women's Indoor, College Recruiting, News

Incoming University of Texas freshmen Brionne Butler and Olivia Zelon have both begun their first semester of classes, and off-season training, with the Texas Longhorns, according to the team’s Twitter account. The pair moved on to campus on January 12th and will play their first official games for the Longhorns as freshmen this fall.

Butler, from Houston, is one of the three-headed top-10-ranked freshman monster that the Longhorns will debut this fall. She’s a 6’3″ middle blocker that hits at 10’8″ and blocks at 10’4″. She was also a member of Team USA at  the 2015 Girls’ U18 World Championships.

Butler joins what could be the best middle in the nation next year for the Longhorns. They return their top two middle blockers as underclassmen next season, including Micaya White, who stepped up in a big way for the Longhorns last season when they lost All-American Chiaka Ogbogu for academic reasons. All signs indicate that Ogbogu will return next season, giving Texas all-conference or all-American caliber performers two-deep in the middle next season.

Zelon, meanwhile, is a 5’6″ libero from Santa Monica, California, where she was a First Team All-City and All-Western-L.A. performer in high school. Texas currently lists 5 liberos on their roster for next season, led by senior Cat McCoy, who led the team with 3.96 digs/set last season. McCoy was named to the 2015 All-Big 12 Second Team.

Texas currently has 3 tournaments on its spring schedule: the F.A.S.T tournament on April 8th in Houston, an April 15th Collegiate Showcase Tournament in Dallas, and an April 18th game against North Texas in Austin.

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Szandana

and to think that 2 of those players mentioned would not play a single point the whole season. Crazy

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of VolleyMob.com. Braden's first foray into sports journalism came in 2010, when he launched a swimming website called The Swimmers' Circle. Two years later, he joined SwimSwam.com as a co-founder. Long huge fans of volleyball, when Braden and the SwimSwam partners sought an opportunity to …

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