Coach will become player again on Saturday as Kelly (Hunter) Natter leads a group of former Huskers against her current players in Nebraska volleyball’s first Alumni Match.
The concept is one Coach Dani Busboom Kelly has considered for a while. With the rise of professional volleyball in the United States and the extensive network of former Huskers still playing, it finally became a reality.
“We were talking about doing one at Louisville, then I got here, and we should definitely be able to do one here with how many players are playing,” Busboom Kelly said. “We just decided if we could get seven or eight alumni that would be willing to play, that we would roll with it. So we got the first seven, and luckily, we were able to add a few more, so the alum aren’t having to play the whole game.
“We also want to make it a really fun event, and Nebraska has got such great tradition to celebrate some of that during this time.”
Finding a setter was the first order of business, and the easiest with Natter right there on staff. Busboom Kelly leaned on her assistant’s connections to assemble the rest of the roster.
“We all collaborated, and just kind of thought of who’s still playing, who could still be playing, and things like that,” Natter said. “I reached out to most people, because I have a lot of people’s numbers, emails, those things. It was kind of hard to get everyone all on the same page and on the same day and figure out everyone’s big girl schedules, but it ended up working out pretty well. We have a good roster.”
Joining Natter will be libero Kenzie (Maloney) Hoppes, middle blockers Lauren Stivrins, Callie Schwarzenbach and Leyla Blackwell and pin hitters Jordan Larson, Gina Mancuso-Prososki, Annika (Albrecht) Moulder, Ally Batenhorst and Lindsay Krause. Renee Saunders and Val Novak Warrior will serve as coaches.
“We haven’t really done anything like this, this specific format where it’s alumni versus the Huskers, and it’s really exciting,” Natter said. “I know it’s a good chance for me to see a lot of my former teammates, former alums that you might stay connected with but you don’t get to see them all that often, so it’s fun to get to see them. But just the playing is going to be really exciting. It’s a really good roster, and I’m definitely nervous because we haven’t practiced together or anything like that.
“We’re going to do like a 30-minute little practice right before we play and see how that goes. I don’t feel that nervous, but I know when I walk out into Devaney, it’ll feel like I’m an athlete again, and that’s a little bit nerve-wracking, but mostly excited.”
Harper Murray said she was a little confused and didn’t think it would happen when the coaches first mentioned the idea to her. She found out the coaches had locked it in the same way many fans did, on social media. Murray mentioned at Big Ten Media Days that she was most looking forward to playing against Natter after some cheerful back-and-forth in practice as well as her former teammates in Batenhorst and Krause.
“I barely know some of the people that are playing with Kelly, so I think it’s going to be exciting, but it’s also going to be interesting,” Murray said. “It’s the first time we’re going to have a true lineup out there and probably not mixing around as much. But I’m really excited, a lot of the girls, like Callie, Ally and Lindsay I got to play with, so it’s going to be fun playing against them. I’m just really excited, and I know it’s going to be really fun and competitive.”
Busboom Kelly said they’ll treat the contest like a regular match with a best-of-five format. The head coach said previously that she wanted the Red-White Scrimmage to be more of a fun day, leaving the Alumni Match as the true dress rehearsal for the season as it’s easier to know what to make of things when the Huskers are all on the same side of the net.
“I think we’ll look at some potential lineups and be able to make changes within those lineups that we would potentially make following weekend,” Busboom Kelly said. “I think you just learn a lot more. This is like an exhibition against another team that a lot of programs do this time of year. So this is our version of that, it just happens to be against alumni, which makes it more fun for the fans.”
In each of the previous public contests — the two spring matches and the Red-White Scrimmage — Busboom Kelly has opted for relatively equal playing time and plenty of lineup experimentation and adjustments. Saturday will likely provide the first true insight into who might be taking the lead in the various position battles.
“I think in the intra-squad scrimmage, obviously everyone plays a lot. We played four sets, so everyone got a chance in different spots and things like that. But when it’s more of a real scrimmage and you’re playing an actual team, obviously it could be three sets, it could be five sets … Now it’s working through actual lineups, who might pass next to each other, who might block next to each other, and kind of envisioning that a little bit.”
Though the players haven’t necessarily gotten on her too much in practice recently, Natter said she’s expecting the competitive juices to start flowing from the first point of the match. She doesn’t plan on taking it easy on the younger Huskers.
“Being in the gym with these guys, they’re so competitive, they’re always kind of talking smack to each other, and then they’ll make little comments to me sometimes,” Natter said. “It’s really playful and really fun. So I think, right from the start, I think it’ll be more joking competitiveness than serious, but I’m sure there’ll be some of those serious moments too.”
Who is Busboom Kelly picking to win? It’s a toss-up.
“You’d like to think we are going to be quite a bit more organized, so we have an edge,” Busboom Kelly said. “But you can’t count out Olympians and even though some of these players, they might not have played in the last month, they just got off playing pro seasons, and were playing at a really high level, so I’m expecting them to be pretty good on the other side.”
Nebraska Public Media and Big Ten Plus will carry Saturday’s Alumni Match with first serve at the Devaney Center set for 6 p.m. CT.
