CHADRON, Neb. — The Nebraska volleyball team capped a busy and unusual spring with a 4-0 exhibition win over Northern Colorado at Chadron State College’s Chicoine Center Saturday afternoon.
A full gym of 1,852 watched the Huskers beat the Bears 25-21, 25-18, 25-16, 25-21 in the program’s annual small-town Nebraska exhibition.
“It was incredible,” Andi Jackson said. “Chadron is amazing, and this has been an awesome experience. Everyone’s been so nice, and they’ve taken really good care of us. So it was a really, really fun game today.”
The Huskers spent about 24 hours in Chadron, a town in far northwest Nebraska with a population just over 5,000. To reiterate, more than 1,800 fans attended the match. The team ate dinner together at the Bean Broker, a local coffee house and pub, and signed autographs on Friday night before facing the Bears on Saturday.
“It’s fun,” Harper Murray said. “Obviously, we’re not used to this. It’s different from a lot of where we’re from and Lincoln and where we grew up, but it’s really special to see all the fans come out here. Obviously, we want to try and give back to them, so we see how much they care when we come out here and we see how much effort they put in. It makes us feel really good, but we hope that they also feel good having us here, and we hope that we can bring a little bit of joy and volleyball to their city. So it’s really cool to be here.”
Saturday was Dani Busboom Kelly’s second foray to a small Nebraska town in the spring as head coach, though this year’s trip took the Huskers a bit father west than last year’s.
“It’s a lot further away than Ord was, and I just feel like you’re in a whole different area, and people that have even a tougher time than some of the other places that we’ve been getting to matches in Lincoln,” Busboom Kelly said. “So it’s really fun to be out here and kind of just experience the Sandhills, I guess, and to show our players a whole new area.”
With most tickets being general admission, fans lined up hours prior to the doors opening to get their seats, with the line stretching around the Chadron State track adjacent to the Chicoine Center.
“I think it’s important, not just volleyball, for all of our sports, and I know the other sports don’t travel like we do,” Busboom Kelly said. “It’s a little different situation for a lot of them, but the fact that it’s not just a school that’s popular in Lincoln, this is an athletic department that the state loves and the whole state is proud of, not just Lincoln and Omaha.”
The match itself saw some up-and-down play from the Huskers, despite the clean sweep. In each set Nebraska put together a run to take control, though the Huskers struggled in the red zone throughout much of the match, allowing the Bears to shrink the final margins without ever truly threatening.
Jayden Robinson (20) and Manaia Ogbechie (14) throw up a block. Photo by John S. Peterson.
The first and fourth sets were the most competitive, with eight ties and four lea changes in game one as well as 10 ties and five lead changes in the final frame. Nebraska hit .289 for the match (with a high of .355 in game two) and held the Bears to .162. Nebraska earned a big advantage from the service line, firing 11 aces while only erring 12 times. Northern Colorado managed just three aces while misfiring 15 times.
Busboom Kelly continued to mix up her lineups, spreading the playing time around and experimenting with different combinations. Opposite hitter Virginia Adriano started the match but didn’t stay in for long as she was feeling under the weather. Freshman Jayden Robinson picked up the slack, splitting time at opposite hitter with redshirt freshman Ryan Hunter and totaling four kills on .273 hitting, three digs and an ace.
“By far her best [performance],” Busboom Kelly said. “We weren’t really planning on playing her on the right a ton, but with Virginia kind of feeling sick, we were like, ‘Let’s put her out there.’ She’s trained some on the right, but probably a little more on the left. So for her just to be confident and go for it, I thought it was awesome to see. That’s what we need her to do, especially this year, is kind of be a utility and be comfortable on both pins.”
Teraya Sigler capped her strong spring by leading the Huskers in kills for the third straight match (tying with two others against Iowa State). The sophomore outside hitter once again showed off a heavy arm and finished with 10 kills on .353 hitting while adding seven digs and seven errorless serve receptions. Sigler finished the spring averaging 3.62 kills per set on .521 hitting, displaying the leap she’s made offensively since the fall.
Skyler Pierce wasn’t far behind Sigler, adding seven kills on .400 hitting and two aces. She averaged 3.17 kills per set on .447 hitting across the three matches.
“They’re both hard workers, that goes without saying, so I don’t need to go on about that,” Murray said or her underclassman pins. “I think when it comes to T, she’s gotten stronger. She has a lot more range in where she’s hitting, so it’s really fun to see that, because she’s obviously only been here for a year, and I feel like she’s learned a lot. And then for Skyler, she had a year to redshirt, and I know she’s learned from a lot of us, and she’s really taking advantage of that, and I’m really proud of Skyler.”
Busboom Kelly also gave Pierce plenty of opportunities to play in the back row, and she added 11 digs and two aces while recording a .946 reception percentage on 37 serves. Her head coach highlighted confidence as the area in which she’s grown the most.
“She doesn’t hesitate anymore,” Busboom Kelly said. “I think we’ve seen that somewhat in the front row, but in the back row she might get aced, but the next play is perfect. So I just love the way she’s really transformed her all-around game, not just one part of it.”
Redshirt freshman middle blocker Kenna Cogill capped a productive spring with another strong showing, finishing with six kills on eight swings while adding a block and an ace. She led Nebraska’s middles in kills this spring with 16 while hitting .500 and adding six blocks in six sets.
Bergen Reilly and Campbell Flynn split the setting duties evenly, combining for 39 assists, nine digs, three kills, a block and an ace. They each recorded 56 assists this spring. Laney Choboy (14 digs, 12 errorless receptions) and Olivia Mauch (10 digs, seven errorless receptions, one ace) each logged two sets at libero.
For Northern Colorado, Lincoln Southwest alumna Maddie Rink started at middle blocker and finished with five kills on nine errorless swings, six blocks and an ace in three sets.
With the final match in the rearview mirror, Busboom Kelly’s second spring as Nebraska’s head coach is complete. The Huskers won 11 of their 12 sets, only dropping the fourth against Creighton in which Nebraska used a 6-2 offense, something Busboom Kelly promised we won’t see in the fall. The head coach said she was pleased with what she saw throughout the three public scrimmages.
“I think just the main thing is what we’ve been working on in practice or some of the players that have had great springs, it translated into matches,” Busboom Kelly said. “That’s not always easy to do, because you can play great in practice, but when you’re in a match-type environment, that can go away. That’s my biggest takeaway. I was really proud of the players that really stepped up in practices performed in the three matches we had.”
