Three takes from No. 2 Nebraska volleyball’s “match for the ages” five-set win over No. 1 Wisconsin
Nebraska Head Coach John Cook believed his team could finally beat Wisconsin after 10 straight losses. His players knew he believed they would win, so they did.
No. 2 Nebraska defeated No. 1 Wisconsin at the Bob Devaney Sports Center in front of a record-setting 9,198 fans. The Huskers won the first set and then battled to take set four and five by two points. NU won 25-22, 17-15, 20-25, 26-24, 15-13.
They snapped a 10-match losing streak and beat the Badgers for the first time since 2017. Nebraska is now the sole leader of the Big Ten and is 19-0 and 10-0 in the conference.
Both teams were undefeated heading into Saturday’s matchup. But Cook knew this squad could do it.
“He showed that he believed in us a lot,” opposite hitter Merritt Beason said. “I think that was huge for us going into this match. If Coach knew we were going to win, we were going to win and so seeing it pay off and seeing the win actually happened for him. It was just so surreal.”
Despite an unpredicted number of attacking errors, the Huskers willed their way to a victory.
Here are three takes from an unforgettable night at Devaney:
Overcoming the errors
Nebraska had 44 hitting errors. That is not a typo. The Huskers had 44 hitting errors and still won.
Their next closest hitting errors this season were 24 against Purdue in a five-set match. They still hit .311.
Against Wisconsin, Nebraska hit .130 with 69 kills. The Badgers had 53 kills and 18 hitting errors to hit .223. The Huskers were able to overcome their errors by having 16 more kills and nine more digs.
Before Saturday’s match, the Badgers averaged 1.85 service aces per set, which ranked second in the Big Ten. Nebraska did not allow a single ace. UW had 12 service errors. Libero Julia Orzol is third in the Big Ten with 0.44 aces per set. She had three service errors against the Huskers.
The Huskers’ back-row defense was critical to this match. Setter Bergen Reilly and libero Lexi Rodriguez led the team with 17 digs each. Outside hitter Harper Murray added 15 digs.
When Nebraska desperately needed a momentum shift, the Huskers’ defense ignited. Those great passes or digs were followed by big-time swings and kills. There were several long rallies. Defense is what keeps them going and out-of-system training ends them.
In the first set, Rodriguez dug a huge swing that flew high over the net and landed right inside the line. Wisconsin’s players even watched it come down and land in. Devaney erupted.
Nebraska’s block struggled as they had seven blocks in five sets. Their touches and having a back row they could rely on were huge. Wisconsin hit .223 compared to their .317 season average.
Freshmen magic
Nebraska’s four freshmen starters were huge in this match. A couple struggled at points but they banded together to win in the end. Their goal to beat Wisconsin started last year.
After NU lost to Wisconsin last season, Husker Assistant Coach Jaylen Reyes texted the group chat with all five freshmen. He said, “Not happening again,” according to Murray’s memory. The freshmen agreed.
Murray was the epitome of resiliency against Wisconsin. She had four kills in the first set and three in the second. The freshman didn’t have a kill after the 9-7 point in the second set until the fourth set. She earned her first kill at the perfect time, tying it 24-24.
The hitter ignited and had seven kills and no errors in the fifth set. Murray hit .778 in the fifth and -.086 in the first four sets.
“At the end of the day, we want to play as a team. You want to play for each other,” Murray said. “So my mindset honestly was just do it for my team. They need me right now, and I’ll be the first to admit that that wasn’t my best game. But I had to do it for my teammates, and I had to figure out some way to get us a point. That was my mentality: just do it for my team, do it for other people.”
Cook said Reilly “set a masterful game five.”
The Huskers hit .545 with only one error. Reilly had 11 assists and two digs. She finished with 50 assists, 17 digs, one ace and three blocks. Nebraska hit a .130 overall. But they struggled to pass at some points, making Reilly’s job harder.
Middle blocker Andi Jackson had eight kills and a team-high four blocks. She hit .174. The middles struggled against Wisconsin. Bekka Allick had seven kills and hit .182. But for perspective, no one hit well against Wisconsin. Reilly led the team with a .286 hitting percentage and four kills.
Cook rarely offers up MVPs. However, he had to bring up defensive specialist Laney Choboy. She had 11 digs and three assists. In set one, Choboy served a 5-0 run to help NU go up 9-4 and give them a lead that UW was unable to overcome. In the final set, Choboy served three straight points to help NU go up 14-12. Murray had three straight kills on those points.
“If I had to give an MVP tonight, it might be Laney. I think she hit every serve but one. She passed really, really well. And she made some digs that just inspired our side. I thought she played really, really well tonight. She’s not in the stats and nobody’s talking about her, but she was a difference-maker for us tonight.”
Flexing the resiliency muscle
All season, Cook and his team have talked about building their resiliency muscle. Nebraska flexed that muscle against Wisconsin.
Despite 44 attacking errors, Nebraska found a way. They came back from a 2-1 deficit after losing the second and third matches and won the set.
Each player struggled at points during the game, but they won. Beason finished with 21 kills but hit .154 and Ally Batenhorst had 13 with a .075 clip. Cook praised both for their efforts and abilities to still make big plays.
“You saw a team that really, really fought through a lot of challenges tonight,” Cook said. “Things weren’t going our way. Wisconsin was playing really well. We were really struggling in games two and three. That team did not quit and they kept believing. We kept telling them, it’s gonna come down to two points at the end.”
The Badgers had 18 blocks, with 12 in the second set. Beason said after the match that getting blocked that many times really impacts a team mentally. But made the adjustment to hit high off the block and use it to their advantage.
Nebraska used its resiliency muscle against Wisconsin but also strengthened it even more. NU was forced to learn a lot about themselves vs. the Badgers.
“I would say the resiliency piece,” Beason said. “You can have 44 errors and still find a way to win on this team. I think Coach always talks about building the callus and building all those experiences that this team necessarily doesn’t have. We’re building those experiences every single day that, later down the road we can rely on.”
The other thing Beason and Nebraska learned was not to have 44 attacking errors.
Cook was clearly impressed with how this team continued to battle. Even though he kept saying this is just match 10 in the Big Ten, his smile said otherwise. The Badgers have had Nebraska’s number for too long and beating them meant a lot to him, his team and this fan base.
Current graduate assistant and former Husker setter Nicklin Hames was very emotional after the match. She never beat the Badgers, including in the 2021 National Championship.
“I’m just blown away with his team, how they could stay in it – through all that and still believe,” Cook said.
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