Kansas University volleyball players rush the court after their Elite Eight victory over USC.

San Diego ? The first five points of the six-point run with which Kansas University finished its fifth set to reach the Final Four came so swiftly that the final point that sent the Jayhawks to their first Final Four seemed to take longer to earn than the previous five combined.

“It was such a long rally, I don’t even remember the last point,” KU sophomore Madison Rigdon said after celebrating and before leaving Jenny Craig Pavilion, located on the picturesque campus of University of San Diego. “It was so long. It was very, very long.”

Long enough that she made it end by drilling a set from West regional MVP Ainise Havili into the deep right corner. It gave Kansas, which had won the first two sets and lost the next two, a 15-13 victory in the fifth. Kansas had trailed 4-0 and 13-9 before finishing on a six-point run.

“I heard Cassie Wait behind me, saying, ‘Go deep corner! Go deep corner!’ I trusted her,” Rigdon said, “and I went for it.”

She certainly did, drilling a shot that found the floor, right where Wait had told her to put it.

Havili, as always, decided which teammate to set up, Wait told Rigdon where to put it, and Rigdon executed the shot perfectly. Three great teammates helping each other out to complete another stunning comeback, the signature of a team that heads into a Final Four match with 30-2 record and confidence soaring.

“That’s Cassie’s job,” said Todd Chamberlain, in his sixth year as an assistant coach to 18th-year head coach Ray Bechard after a standout career at Ball State. “She’s the one who can see the block behind the attacker, so she has to be calling out where they need to be attacking.”

One point from clinching the road to Omaha for Thursday’s national semifinal vs. Nebraska, Kelsie Payne seemed the likely candidate to take the winning shot.

“Most people in the gym probably thought (Havili) would have set that ball back,” Chamberlain said. “She set a nice ball out to Rigdon, who drove the ball deep to the corner and finished the match for us with a great kill. I wasn’t too surprised by the set, but that was a helluva swing Rigdon took.”

The fact that the match was so hotly contested ensured that the loser would be devastated.

USC coach Mick Haley won a national championship at Texas in 1988 and two at USC (2002 and 2003). He left the college game for four years between his stops at those schools to coach the USA women’s volleyball team, which fell short of a bronze medal under his leadership in the 2000 Sydney Games.

He has tasted the thrill of championships and the agony of Final Four misses, but he could not recall one that felt worse.

“This one teased us so badly,” Haley said. “Just a little hard to get over.”

Samantha Bricio, likely selection as national player of the year, started the night quietly, with just one kill in USC’s 25-18 first-set loss, but by the time the night was over, Bricio showed she’s worthy of whatever hardware comes her way. She had 25 kills.

“I think they played really well,” Bricio said of the Jayhawks. “They were a really, really good team. They played an amazing game.”

The fact that Bricio was on the front row for the entire six-point barrage made the comeback all the more improbable.

For posterity’s sake, the anatomy of a comeback from a 9-13 deficit:

• Janae Hall kill, 10-13;

• Baylee Johnson’s bad set, 11-13;

• Payne and Tayler Soucie team to block Bricio attack, 12-13;

• Wait service ace, 13-13 (“Huge,” Bechard said.);

• Payne kill, 14-13;

• Rigdon kill, 15-13;

Dogpile, KU. Sunken hearts, USC. Such a fine line.

“It’s a really special game,” Haley said. “You can love it. Then when it does this to you, you want to beat it to death.”

On the other side, the KU coaches had a team full of players they wanted to hug to death, including Havili, a magician of a setter and fellow all-tournament selections Payne, a killer killer, and Wait, who really digs volleyball and volleyballs.

“We fight for each other,” Havili said. “That’s our motto.”

How did they do it? How do they do it over and over?

“We all just look at each other every single point in the eye and say, ‘One more. One more.'”

One more it was. Six times in a row against the NCAA Tournament’s No. 1 seed.

Up next for Kansas, No. 4 seed Nebraska, Thursday in Omaha. The winner of that plays the winner of No. 3 Texas vs. No. 2 Minnesota on Saturday.