Dani Busboom Kelly has reportedly landed her second recruit as Nebraska’s volleyball’s head coach. According to Volleyball.IT, Italian opposite hitter Virginia Adriano will join the Huskers.
The 6-foot-5 pin-hitter will turn 21 in July. She spent this past season with Bergamo in the SuperLega (Seria A1), the highest professional league in Italy. She played a limited role, totaling 80 points in 28 matches, with 25 of those points coming in her final match on March 30. The season prior, she starred for Volley Hermaea Olbia in the A2 league, totaling 446 points including 352 kills in 26 matches.
Adriano has also competed for the Italian youth national teams.
She is set to join an opposite hitter group at Nebraska that currently includes freshman Ryan Hunter, who starred during the team’s spring exhibition against Kansas at the Devaney Center, and Baylor transfer Allie Szcech, who signed with Nebraska this week and is set to graduate in Waco next weekend. The trio will compete to fill the starting spot on the right side left by Merritt Beason’s departure.
Adriano would push Nebraska’s roster total to 17, one short of the proposed roster limit (pending the passage of the amended House Settlement with a grandfathering clause).
Adriano would be the second opposite hitter to commit to a Big Ten school this week after Florida transfer Kennedy Martin — arguably the best right side in the country not named Olivia Babcock — committed to Penn State coming off the Nittany Lions’ national title and following former Florida coach Mary Wise’s retirement.
