No. 1 Nebraska volleyball was all business after clinching a share of the Big Ten title Thursday night with a sweep over Iowa. According to Andi Jackson, the Huskers are waiting until they win it outright to celebrate.
The Cornhuskers (27-0, 17-0 Big Ten) took down the Hawkeyes (14-15, 5-12) 25-15, 25-21, 25-18 in front of a crowd of 8,662, the 350th consecutive sellout at the Devaney Center.
“It’s insane,” Virginia Adriano said of the streak. “It’s something that I’ve never seen before. I know maybe you can think internationally it’s way bigger, and it’s really not. College volleyball is insane. And I know there’s no place like Nebraska; everybody keeps saying that, and it’s very true. It’s an insane number.”
Defensively, the Huskers held the Hawkeyes to .073 hitting and just under 10 kills per set. Laney Choboy was back in the libero jersey for the Huskers, who out-dug the Hawkeyes by eight and out-blocked them by five. Jackson said their ball control keyed the effort.
“We talked about it before the game is we’ve worked really hard this week and this whole season, so we were going to go out and we were going to play Nebraska volleyball,” Jackson said. “As simple as it is, it’s just ball control and controlling the things that we know how to control — two people on the ball at all times, we’re making clean block moves, we’re being smart when we’re attacking, we’re going for high hands, and I just think that was a huge factor of it is we went out and we played clean volleyball and we made Iowa hit the ball, and that’s a huge game changer is when you let them make the errors.”
Nebraska only committed 12 attack errors, hitting .384. Bergen Reilly finished with 34 assists, a team-high seven digs, four blocks and two kills. Harper Murray led the way with 11 kills on .261 hitting. Jackson added 10 kills on .571 hitting, upping her league-leading hitting percentage to .562 in conference play. Adriano chipped in with nine kills on .500 hitting.
On a night when Nebraska handed out oversized ace cards to fans, Nebraska was aggressive from the service line from the start and took control early in set one, using a 6-0 run featuring Jackson at the line to open an 11-3 lead. Soon after, a pair of kills from the middle blocker sandwiched a wicked ace from Adriano to push the lead to nine at 17-8, and the Huskers cruised the rest of the way.
Olivia Mauch has served for Adriano much of the season, and Coach Dani Busboom Kelly said the freshman from Italy hasn’t looked very confident at the line recently. However, she served it well in practice on Thursday in a tough environment, and the head coach wanted to give her a shot in the match. Adriano made the most of the opportunity, leading the team with three aces, though they came with four errors as well.
“I’ve been working really hard on that,” Adriano said. “Every time I get the chance of going to serve, I try my best. It’s been a week where the coaches were trying to be like, ‘Just go for it, try your best, and not be scared to go out there and hit it,’ and that’s what I’m trying to do. It kind of worked, like for half the match, I would say, but I’ll keep getting better.”
Skyler Pierce checked in for the final two rallies and delivered the set-point kill on an assist from Rebekah Allick.
Nebraska hit .464 with 17 kills and three aces while holding Iowa to .152. Taylor Landfair led the way with five kills on nine errorless swings, surpassing 1,500 career kills in the process. The Hawkeyes only managed six digs on 28 Nebraska swings.
Iowa put up a much better fight in set two, staying within three points almost the whole way and tying the score seven different times, the last at 20-all. However, Murray responded with back-to-back kills, sparking a 5-1 run to finish the set, with the Hawkeyes hitting long on set point.
Nebraska hit .500 as Murray took over, terminating on six of her 10 swings. Jackson went 4-for-4 while Reilly recorded an assist on 15 of Nebraska’s 16 swings with the Huskers consistently operating in system. However, Nebraska did allow three aces and misfired four times itself from the end line to make the game closer than it should have been, with the Hawkeyes hitting .162.
“Anytime we get challenged, it’s good,” Busboom Kelly said. “The score matters, yes, but if another team is playing great and challenging us in areas that we need to improve, that’s going to be helpful. So I don’t necessarily think it’s always a score thing, it’s just when other teams are doing things that make us uncomfortable, it’s good for us to work through that. I thought Iowa played really well. That’s what we’ve seen on film; they’ve lost a lot of five-game matches, and you think they win half of those, they’d probably be a tournament team. So it’s good team with a great setter and a fantastic libero, and they do a nice job.”
The competitiveness carried over into the third set, with Iowa using a 3-0 run to take its first lead of the night at 9-8. After a brief back-and-forth, Nebraska surged ahead for good with a 4-0 run to take a 17-13 lead.
The teams traded points for a brief stretch before the Huskers closed the match with another 5-1 run, including an overpass smash from Jackson on the final rally.
Nebraska’s attack percentage plummeted to .179, but the defense carried the way as Iowa hit minus-.154 with 10 errors, four of which were the result of Nebraska blocks.
The Huskers will spend Friday preparing for an up-tempo No. 17 Indiana team before heading to Bloomington for a Saturday evening clash, Nebraska’s final road match of the season. First serve is set for 5 p.m. CT, streaming on Big Ten Plus.
