No. 1 Nebraska reached 20-0 for the 10th time in program history with a home sweep over a UCLA team just outside the AVCA Top 25 on Thursday.
Another strong defensive outing led to a 25-19, 25-11, 25-16 victory to boost the Huskers to 9-0 in Big Ten play. The Bruins (15-5, 6-3) were 13th in the Division I Committee’s midseason top 16 reveal on Sunday.
“I think we were really well prepared and dialed in and great at communicating tonight,” Coach Dani Busboom Kelly said. “That was a goal of ours to be all over them from the start, and then it just kind of made the rest of the game feel easy when we were so dialed in on the scout.”
Four Husker attackers finished in the eight-to-11-kills range as Bergen Reilly set her team to a .380 hitting percentage with 39 assists plus 10 digs, four blocks and three kills. Defensively, Nebraska held the Bruins to a season-low .036 as Laney Choboy led the way with 13 digs while Olivia Mauch added 10. The Huskers out-blocked the Bruins (third in the league in blocks per set) nine to four.
“I think it was just a reflection of how hard we’ve worked this week, and like Dani said, everyone was super dialed, and our scout was super dialed, and that just starts literally from Monday,” Andi Jackson said. “Everyone came in, we were ready to go, fast hands over the net, and I think that everyone was just mentally locked in on who’s hitting, what shot they want to hit, and after the first 10 points, we kind of adjusted and took that away from them and made it really hard for them to score. I just think it was just being intentional with our block moves and really intentional with who we’re blocking across the net.”
Jackson led Nebraska with 11 kills on .625 hitting and six blocks.
Virginia Adriano added 10 kills on .333 hitting for her second straight match in double figures. That followed a stretch of three straight performances under .150, including a negative outing against Northwestern.
“It was really good,” Adriano said of finding success. “I feel like kind of a reflection from the game of Purdue. I started really well, then I had a little bit of struggle in the second set, and then I recovered in the third and fourth. I was talking about this with Bergen today, that I’m very thankful that she still trusts me, even if I’m struggling … There’s a lot of mental stuff behind it, so I was thankful that she kept trusting me and kept setting me, and I regained my confidence ball after ball.”
Harper Murray added nine kills on .292 hitting, five digs and three blocks. Teraya Sigler chipped in eight kills on .471 hitting and five digs, her seventh straight match of at least eight kills and better than .350 hitting.
Nebraska misfired nine times from the service line and only recorded one ace, but Busboom Kelly was pleased with what her team accomplished from the end line as the Bruins were out of sorts offensively for much of the match.
“I thought our serve came alive,” Busboom Kelly said. “We started really hitting our zones and the depths, which I think we’ve been OK at that the last few games. Just super aggressive from the service line and that mentality that we had early on in the year that our serving could take a team out of it, so that was awesome to see us get back to that.”
First Set
Andi Jackson (15) spikes the ball against the UCLA Bruins in the first set. Photo by John S. Peterson.
After an error-prone start to the match on both sides, UCLA threw the first solid punch with a 4-0 run, including back-to-back blocks, to take a 9-6 lead. Nebraska didn’t flinch, nor did Busboom Kelly call a timeout. The Cornhuskers regrouped on the court and responded with a 7-1 stretch to take the lead for good.
Back-to-back UCLA points, the second on a Nebraska error, cut the gap to one at 14-13, but the Huskers didn’t commit an error the rest of the way as they gradually pulled away. Adriano came alive down the stretch with three kills in a five-rally span to give the Huskers set point, and the Bruins misfired to end it.
“It’s great,” Busboom Kelly said of Adriano stepping up. “When she can terminate, that that makes us feel pretty unstoppable, especially in big moments, and maybe not on perfect sets or passes. She had an awesome game after a great game against Purdue.”
The clean back-half of the set boosted Nebraska’s hitting percentage to .333, while the Bruins only managed a .057 clip. Adriano and Murray led the way with five kills apiece.
Second Set
UCLA won two of the first three rallies in set two, but it was all Huskers the rest of the match. A 10-1 run — featuring first Mauch and then Choboy at the service line — blew the game wide open.
The Huskers continued to pour it on the rest of the way, extending the lead more and more as the set went on. Busboom Kelly turned to Skyler Pierce at the media timeout with the Huskers leading 15-6. She replaced Sigler after 5-0-10 start to the match and scored her own kill a few minutes into her stint.
Busboom Kelly also gave the double-middle lineup a look, with Kenna Cogill subbing in for Adriano to push Manaia Ogbechie to opposite. The duo didn’t record any blocks, though Cogill did put down a kill.
Murray closed out the set with Nebraska’s lone ace, off the tape and down.
The Huskers hit .357 behind five kills from Jackson and held the Bruins to minus-.050. Choboy led the defensive effort with six digs as the Bruins took 40 swings and only managed eight kills.
Third Set
Nebraska jumped on UCLA from the opening serve in game three with a 3-0 start en route to wire-to-wire victory.
Middle blocker Kenna Cogill (8) spikes the ball for a kill in the third set against the UCLA Bruins. Photo by John S. Peterson.
The Huskers pushed that early lead to 10-3 then extended it to 18-10 before playing the sideout game the rest of the way. Busboom Kelly called Pierce and Cogill’s number again, with the latter tacking on two more kills down the stretch to finish 3-for-3 on the day, bouncing back from a rough offensive performance when she started for an ill Ogbechie against Northwestern.
“It’s so awesome,” Jackson said of the sophomore’s performance. “Kenna continuously just proves that she can come in and be a game changer, and I think it’s so awesome because it is so much more mental than physical. I think people who maybe don’t play sports or haven’t been in that situation before don’t necessarily realize how hard it is mentally, rather than physically, and it’s not a knock on them. Just for Kenna to be able to come in, especially with still how young she is and maybe the little bit of experience that she has.
“I think it’s so awesome that she can come in and be a game changer and get multiple kills and just like look like a veteran out there. It’s really awesome.”
Jackson capped her sixth performance hitting .600 or better this season with a kill on match point. Nebraska hit a blistering .436 with 20 kills. UCLA hit .111 as Adriano (five kills) and Jackson (four) outpaced the Bruins (eight) on their own.
Up Next
The Huskers will closeout Cali week on Saturday when USC visits the Devaney Center.
The Trojans are just 9-10 overall and 3-6 in league play after entering the season ranked 20th in the AVCA Coaches Poll. Earlier this month, head coach Brad Keller stepped away from the program for an indefinite personal leave. Associate head coach Megan Moenoa has stepped in to take the lead.
While USC is under .500 overall, the Trojans have knocked off two of the better teams in the country in current No. 8 Arizona State (3-0 on Aug. 29) and current No. 18 Indiana (3-0 on Oct. 11). They rank last in the Big Ten in hitting percentage at .208, though they’re also second in blocks at 2.76 per set.
Abigail Mullen, a 6-foot-3 sophomore opposite hitter, leads the attack at 3.13 on .202 hitting. London Wijay, a 5-foot-10 junior opposite hitter, isn’t far behind at 3.09 on .181 hitting.
USC also features a pair of Omaha natives in 6-foot-1 junior middle blocker Mia Tvrdy (Papillion-La Vista) and sophomore defensive specialist Paisley Douglas (Skutt Catholic). Tvrdy has started all 19 matches and is averaging 2.14 kills per set on .304 hitting and 1.28 blocks per set. Douglas has played in 17 matches, primarily off the bench, and is averaging just over a dig per set.
“They have an opposite from the Kansas City area; she does a great job,” Busboom Kelly said on the Huskers Radio Network on Tuesday. “They have a middle from Omaha who is super-fast and great off one foot. They have the athletes. It’s kind of like when you talk about playing Texas — a little bit different level, but man, if they put it together, they’re going to be hard to stop because they have the athletes, they have some great experience and it’s a team that can be scary from a physicality standpoint.”
The match is also Nebraska’s annual “Pink Match” for breast cancer awareness.
First serve on Saturday is set for 8 p.m. CT on Big Ten Network with Larry Punteney and Mac Podraza. John Baylor and Lauren (Cook) West will have the call on the Huskers Radio Network.
