When Austin’s Madisen Skinner sent the ball long to make it 16-14 in the fifth set, giving Salt Lake the victory in the first of LOVB’s two championship matches, it felt like something had shifted. Austin, the reigning champions from the inaugural season of the league, had once again managed to narrowly find their way into the championship match despite an uneven record and mid-season struggles.

Last season, Austin only made it into the playoffs because all of the league’s six teams did, and, as the fifth seed in the tournament, it seemed unlikely that they would make it past the first round. This looked especially improbable when they went down two sets to none against Salt Lake, until they came back to win it with an 18-16 victory in the fifth set. Despite this upset, it looked even more dubious that they could take down the league’s top team, Atlanta, who also took a 2-0 lead over Austin in their playoffs match. But as they did in the first round, Austin kept their heads high and took the next three sets, finishing with a 16-14 win in the fifth. 

In those matches as well as the straight-sets win over Omaha to clinch the championship, Skinner was key to her team’s success. Across the three matches, she totaled 73 points (over five per set), including 63 kills on a .277 efficiency. In all but the final, she led her team in points, and even then she only trailed the leading scorer (Logan Eggleston) by one point. She was named MVP of the championship and collected her fifth trophy in seven seasons.

This kind of high-level performance in post-season tournament matches had become a hallmark of Skinner’s. In her 2022 season at Texas, she averaged 4.05 points per set during the regular season and hit .299; in the NCAA tournament that Texas would go on to win, she averaged the same number of points per set on a .338 hitting efficiency. In 2023, Texas repeated as national champions, in no small part thanks to Skinner, who once again outdid herself by scoring 6.43 points per set on a .316 efficiency compared to her regular season 5.31 points per set on a .289 efficiency. For her contributions, she was named Most Outstanding Player of the tournament.

This dominance, however, was not on display during the first match of the 2026 LOVB finals. In a five-set battle against Salt Lake, Skinner remained her team’s leading scorer with 21 points, but her efficiency on the night was barely over .100. She struggled both in terms of hitting out and being blocked (each of which happened six times) and, as noted earlier, errored on the last point of the match, allowing Salt Lake to punch first. And in the must-win second match, her struggles seemed to continue early on: she hit .000 in the first set and .167 in the second, and by the time Austin was down 2-1, she had only scored nine kills on a .211 efficiency. Things looked increasingly grim for Austin as it appeared that the championship version of Madisen Skinner would not show up.

But then she did.

In the fourth set, Austin overcame an early deficit to win 25-22, thanks in part to Skinner’s six kills on a much-improved .364 efficiency. Suddenly, and seemingly out of nowhere, the line shots she had been hitting wide were now landing in. Instead of timid tips, she was powering balls to the undefended center (the “donut”) of Salt Lake’s court. As she regained her mojo, so did her team, who carried that momentum into the fifth-set tiebreaker where Skinner had five kills on a superb .714 efficiency and, with a 15-11 win, Austin sent the championship to a golden set. With heightened confidence, the team’s scoring was balanced in the decisive set: Eggleston and middle blocker Molly McCage led the team with three points, while Skinner and middle blocker Asjia O’Neal each had two points. Eggleston scored the final point, and the Austin bench flooded the court to celebrate. Skinner was, like last year, named Most Valuable Player.

To be clear: Skinner is not the only player responsible for Austin’s win. Though her attacking efficiency left something to be desired, Eggleston contributed 18 points, passed 75% in-system, and led her team in digs with 14 during the second match (golden set excluded). Blockers McCage and O’Neal were all over Salt Lake’s offense, scoring a combined seven block points (eight if you count the golden set) and slowing down plenty more balls with touches at the net. When starting setter Carli Lloyd’s connection with her hitters started to waver, Brie O’Reilly subbed in and, after some initial calibrating, leveled-up Austin’s offense. Even backup libero Zoe Jarvis, who has mostly played as a defensive specialist this season, rose to the occasion when called upon to start in the third set, passing 64% in-system (compared to 50% on the season) and racking up twelve digs by the time the night was over.

Salt Lake is also, in part, responsible for Austin’s win. While it was a balanced team effort consisting of all attackers hitting .200 or better on the first night, things were decidedly less balanced in the second match against Austin. Between the two nights, outside hitter Alexa Gray took 129 swings. Considering the heavy load she carried, she performed about as well as anyone could given the circumstances; she had 24 kills in each of the five-set matches and added another five kills on six swings in the golden set.

It was the lack of production from other key players on her team and a headscratching refusal from head coach Tama Miyashiro to make any substitutions that made for a losing combination. Opposite hitter Heidy Casanova has had some great matches this season, but this final bout was not one of them—she ended the night hitting negative while backup Skylar Fields—who has shown the ability to provide a spark off the bench—sat unused. Middle blocker Serena Gray proved, as usual, to be Salt Lake’s best secondary offensive option, but in the rotations when fellow middle Tori Dixon was on the court, there was barely any attempt to utilize her (she ended up hitting well in the main match—six kills hitting .556—but was set only nine times in five sets). For several rotations at a time, it was obvious that the ball would go to Alexa Gray, allowing Austin to prepare and hold her to a .200 efficiency.

Still, despite these factors, the way that Skinner’s performance affects the rest of her team is remarkable. Overall, Skinner hit .244 on the regular season—which is respectable, though perhaps a tad low for someone considered the go-to outlet for her team. But there was a huge disparity between her performances in losing vs. winning matches. In the matches Austin lost, Skinner’s hitting percentage averaged .171, whereas she hit .296 across the matches the team won. The six matches in which Skinner had 11 or fewer kills were all losses, compared to the four matches in which she had more than 20 kills being all wins. Austin only won one of the six matches in which Skinner hit under .200. 

Again, this is not to suggest that the rest of her team’s contributions don’t matter. But given the perceived influence that Skinner has on her team’s overall performance, the title of “Most Valuable Player” is especially resonant.