Nebraska volleyball remained No. 1 in the latest AVCA Coaches Poll after a 2-0 start to the season, again receiving 57 first-place votes. The other six coaches had No. 2 Pittsburgh at the top of their ballot — including Dani Busboom Kelly.
“I do have a vote, and I did not vote us No. 1,” Busboom Kelly revealed on the Huskers Radio Network Nebraska Volleyball Coaches Show Tuesday night. “I voted Pitt No. 1, so I’m one of those six. I just feel like their schedule has been really tough, and they look great, and we have a little more to prove. Granted, they got to do the First Serve, so they got that extra week of volleyball, but I thought that was worth the No. 1 vote.”
The Panthers opened the season with four straight wins, three of them over ranked opponents in Kentucky, Kansas and Wisconsin. Texas (2-2) dropped from two to nine after falling to the Huskers in Las Vegas on Sunday. Wisconsin remained at No. 5 despite its 1-3 start to the year, and six other Big Ten teams appeared in the top 25.
After leading the Huskers to sweeps over UNLV and the Longhorns at the Players Era Volleyball Showcase, Bergen Reilly added her 14th Big Ten Setter of the Week award to her Players Era MVP honor. The senior averaged 10.33, 2.50 digs and 1.17 kills per set while hitting .700, notching four blocks and serving three aces. She set Nebraska to a .315 attack percentage across the two matches.
“I thought she played great, and what’s crazy is she’s got more she can do,” Busboom Kelly said. “I just think we can diversify our offense a tad more, we can speed it up a little bit if we need to. Her serve, you saw that hybrid after game one; can we do that more consistently? So she still has a lot left in the tank, but she played great.”
Busboom Kelly said she thought Reilly, Pitt’s Izzy Starck and Wisconsin’s Charlie Fuerbringer had separated themselves at the top of an elite group of setters across the country.
In addition to her stellar play on the court, Nebraska will continue to rely on Reilly for leadership as she will again serve as a captain alongside Andi Jackson. With both captains from last season returning, Busboom Kelly said she won’t hold another vote. Part of that is she wants to empower all four of her seniors to lead the team together in what could be their final season.
Whether or not any or all of them choose to return for a fifth season after the implementation of the age-based eligibility model is an “ongoing conversation.”
“I do want people to know those conversations are happening, but it’s not so simple as, ‘yes, I’m in;’ ‘no, I’m out,’” Busboom Kelly said. “I think there’s a lot that goes into it, and we already have our recruits in for 2027, so those guys are coming no matter what. It’s not really affecting our recruiting at this point, and transfers, maybe we won’t know about those until December anyways. It’s an ongoing conversation.”
A difficult upcoming stretch will challenge the leadership of that group as Nebraska continues its road stretch to open the season. After playing in Arlington, Texas, on last Thursday and in Las Vegas on Saturday and Sunday, the Huskers departed on Tuesday for Brookings, S.D., where they’ll face South Dakota State on Wednesday. After that, they’ll head to Chicago for a pair of matches over the weekend.
“I’m really excited,” Busboom Kelly said. “Just another chance to get better and improve and anytime you can play against an opponent, I think you learn a lot. I also am hoping that we can rest some of our starters and get some other players in. It’s a gauntlet of a week; we play Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, and then we go into a week where we’re playing Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So it’s a lot of games within a two-week span.”
Tickets for Wednesday’s match at First Bank & Trust Arena (with a capacity of 5,000 in a town of roughly 24,000 people) sold out seven minutes after they went on sale to the general public. It’s fair to a assume a good number of those tickets went to Reilly’s friends and family, as the Sioux Falls native returns to play in her home state once again.
The Jackrabbits are coming off back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances but went 1-2 at the Pepperdine Tournament to open the season, beating Sacramento State 3-2 before falling to the Waves 3-0 and to Villanova 3-2.
South Dakota ran primarily a two-setter offense at Pepperdine with senior outside hitter Sylvie Zgonc leading the attackers. The two-time honorable mention AVCA All-American and back-to-back Summit League Player of the Year averaged 4.15 kills per set on .336 hitting during the Jackrabbits’ first three matches and has totaled nearly 1,400 kills in her career.
Busboom Kelly said her goal this week, with additional matches against DePaul and Missouri in Chicago, is to get Skyler Pierce and her underclassmen into the matches, both to reduce the early-season workload for the veterans and to give the reserves opportunities to show what they can do.
Sophomores Teraya Sigler (2.50 kills per set on .414 hitting) and Manaia Ogbechie (1.83 blocks per set) have both impressed in their new roles, but Busboom Kelly said the players behind those two and the other starters have made significant strides as well.
“Manaia and Teraya both are really aggressive players, and that’s what you need from underclassmen, and they just carry themselves with a lot of confidence,” Busboom Kelly said. “I’m also really proud of, even Skyler Pierce, we’re going to ask her to do a lot this year in different roles, and she always is ready and so far has been great. It’s been awesome to see, specifically Manaia and Teraya, but people don’t see us behind the scenes and how great the freshmen are and the sophomores, the players that redshirted, and just how much they’ve improved. It is crazy, and I’m excited to showcase that throughout the year here and there when we will work everybody in.”
First serve in Brookings Wednesday is set for 7 p.m. CT on MidCo Sports Plus, which requires a subscription. The Huskers Radio Network will also broadcast the match, with John Baylor and Lauren (Cook) West on the call.
