There was a palpable feeling of deja vu inside the Sprint Center. 

Just two years ago in Omaha in front of a record crowd dressed in red, Nebraska won a national championship, and this year — three hours away in Kansas City — the Huskers once again ended the season with confetti raining down on the heads and thousands of Big Red faithful in the stands.

Just like two years ago, outside hitter Mikaela Foecke came up big. 

Against Texas in the 2015 national championship match, she had 19 kills and was named the tournament’s most outstanding player. This year, in the 3-1 (25-22, 25-17, 18-25, 25-16) victory over No. 2-seeded Florida, the junior outside hitter had 20 kills on a match-high 56 swings. She was once again named tournament most outstanding player, but this time she shared it with her senior setter Kelly Hunter.

"We normally don't have a go-to," Hunter said. "I think it's Foecke stepping up in this tournament. She did that again, and she was just hot."

Nebraska was dominant in the first, second, and fourth sets, faltering only in the third when Florida cranked up its serving game and kept the Huskers from running their typical in-system offense.  

The Huskers went on a 10-2 run to open the fourth set and Florida couldn’t rebound, never getting within four points of Nebraska.

Fittingly, Foecke put down the game-winning swing.

The four-set national championship defeat marked only Florida’s second loss of the 2017 season. The Gators survived five-set battles with USC in the regional final and Stanford in the national semifinal, relying on a gritty style of play and a foursome of senior starters who got Florida back to the national championship for the first time since 2003.

In the press conference after the match, one of those seniors — outside hitter Carli Snyder — reflected on her final season of collegiate volleyball.

“A year ago in the NCAA Tournament, we were out in the second round and said we are going to change some things,” Snyder said. “We are doing a press conference at the finals, and if that doesn't inspire people that they can make a change, you can shift the culture, you can bring a team together and create a common goal and really work. . . . That's why you see the three of us crying up here, because there is not a group that I would rather go until the very last day with.”

Florida was one of the most effective offensive teams in the country throughout the regular season, but Nebraska held Florida to a season-low .141 hitting percentage.