No. 1 Nebraska volleyball only lost three matches last year, but two of them came to the team the Huskers (12-0, 2-0 Big Ten) will visit on Friday: Penn State.
The Nittany Lions handed the Huskers their lone conference loss in four sets in the final week of the regular season then ended Nebraska’s season in a five-set thriller in the Final Four.
It’s a new season with different rosters on both sides of the net, but the returning Huskers haven’t forgotten about those losses.
“I still see them as the team from last year,” Rebekah Allick said. “I know they have some new firepower, but I don’t know. I’m going to lead by example with this, but I’ve got a grudge, so I want to kick some butt.”
After beating the Huskers, the Nittany Lions took down Dani Busboom Kelly’s Louisville Cardinals in the national championship. Penn State also beat Louisville during nonconference play, so Nebraska’s new coach owes the Nittany Lions as much as her current team does.
“We’re, I’d say, pretty motivated,” Busboom Kelly said. “It’s kind of a chip on our shoulder week. We know that we’re going to have to play really well to go in there and beat them. I know it’s sold out, and it’s one of the toughest places to play, if not the toughest in the conference, so it’s going to be a challenge. But I do think, Penn State or not, this team is kind of ready for another challenge and ready for something to really have our sights set on.”
Coming off the title, the Nittany Lions were second in the preseason AVCA Coaches Poll behind only Nebraska. They lost one of the best pins in the country in Jess Mruzik from that team but returned almost everyone else and landed arguably the biggest name in the transfer portal in former Florida opposite hitter Kennedy Martin. Despite the lofty expectations, the Nittany Lions have struggled this season. They’re 7-5 including 1-1 in Big Ten play and have dropped down to 16th in the latest poll. Even so, the Huskers aren’t taking them lightly.
“Obviously a really great team,” Busboom Kelly said. “They have some serious firepower on the pins. I think their middles do a nice job. Fantastic libero, so not many holes for them in my mind. I know they’ve had some losses this year that could be unexpected, but I still think this is a team that can contend at a really high level.”
Penn State’s nonconference losses all came to teams currently rankled in the top 15, and UCLA climbed into the top 25 after beating the Nittany Lions on Sunday. They also have wins over Creighton, Kansas and UCLA, all top-20 teams.
Penn State has also had to navigate losing a key piece as setter Izzy Starck, the AVCA National Freshman of the Year and an All-American last season, stepped away from the team after just four matches, citing mental health reasons. Saint Louis transfer Addie Lyon has stepped in at setter and is averaging 8.08 assists per set.
“You can’t really replace Izzy Stark, just her talent as a setter, her athleticism,” Busboom Kelly said. “But they have Kennedy Martin; I think she could hit off anybody. She’s going to be great. Their outside hitters, they have three of them that are really, really physical. The setter doesn’t affect the libero. So I think there’s still a very, very good team.”
Martin certainly hasn’t disappointed. The junior is leading the Big Ten with 5.23 kills per set on .315 hitting. In the Nittany Lions’ 3-1 loss to UCLA, the 6-foot-6 right side went off for a career-high 34 kills on .403 hitting, the fifth match of her career with 30-plus kills.
“She’s so good and talented,” Busboom Kelly said. “It’s just somebody that we know is going to get their kills. It’s just, can you slow her down? I don’t know. How do you try to slow her down while containing everybody else on their team? I think those are the questions we’re answering this week and working to figure out.”
Penn State coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley is still looking for a consistent source of offense beyond Martin, however. Sophomore Emmi Sellman is second on the team with 2.51 kills per set but is only hitting .164. Former Cornhusker Caroline Jurevicius is playing on the left side this season following Martin’s arrival and is averaging 2.20 kills per set on .192 hitting. Schumacher-Cawley has also given Alexis Ewing some run in that spot recently, but the 6-foot-4 freshman is only averaging 1.59 kills per set on .167 hitting.
Though fairly efficient, the middle attack hasn’t been a big part of Penn State’s offense this season as former Husker Maddie Mendelson and Alliance alumna Jordan Hopp are combining for 3.47 kills per set on .377 hitting (compared to 5.08 kills per set on .417 hitting for Nebraska’s starting middles).
Overall, Penn State is 13th in the Big Ten in hitting percentage at .256. They Nittany Lions have struggled even more on defense, allowing opponents to hit .230 (15th among Big Ten teams) despite featuring one of the top liberos in the conference in Gillian Grimes (3.51 digs per set).
Friday will be Nebraska’s second true road match of the season, though the trip to Lipscomb in late August wasn’t anything like what the Huskers will face when they walk into Rac Hall at University Park. Friday will be the first truly hostile environment the team’s freshmen will experience.
“We’ve talked a little bit about it,” Bergen Reilly said. “It’s one of the loudest gyms in the country, and so just being prepared for that, and we’ve been doing some things in practice to prepare for that. But I think at the end of the day, yeah, they haven’t played there before, but they know we lost last year. They watched the games, they feel the frustration we feel too, and maybe it’s not to the extent that we do, but they know what they’re getting themselves into a little bit, and we’ve talked about that at practice. The fans are going to be on top of you, and they’re going to say some crazy things, and that’s the fun part about it.”
Allick’s advice to the team’s newcomers is to embrace the rivalry and the atmosphere.
“Never make the moment bigger than what it is, but also enjoy it, don’t try and walk in and act like you’re too cool for school,” Allick said. “Acknowledge that they are a good team, but enjoy the environment, because not everywhere we go are we going to have fans that outnumber Husker fans, and so it’ll be different, but it’s also going to be really fun.”
First serve on Friday is set for 7 p.m. CT on FOX.
Regardless of Friday’s result, the Huskers will have to move on quickly as their road trip continues to Rutgers (9-5, 0-2) for a Saturday night clash.
“That’s definitely a hard part about back-to-back games, and we had this last year too,” Reilly said. “We played Penn State, and then the next day we went to Maryland, and we dropped a set to Maryland last year. It’s hard, and we’re not going to be perfect about it; we know that Penn State is a huge game, just for down the road too. So giving ourselves grace and knowing that we should take it all in and enjoy the rivalry and enjoy the fun environment but still have to wake up and win another game the next day.”
The Scarlet Knights dropped their first two Big Ten matches last week, but they were against two of the league’s top teams in No. 7 Wisconsin and No. 10 Minnesota. Rutgers is fifth in the Big Ten in hitting at .289, seventh in opponent hitting at .184 and first in aces at 2.21 per set.
Aspen Maxwell, a 6-foot-4 sophomore pin, is fifth in the big Ten in kills at 4.21 per set on .309 hitting, while senior Tara Garvey is adding 2.57 kills per set on .288 hitting. Senior Lexi Visintine is leading the Big Ten with 27 aces, 0.56 per set. She’s one of three Scarlet Knight servers in the league’s top 10 as Maxwell and sophomore setter Lily Bohlen have also served 19 aces apiece.
Rutgers also has a Nebraska native on its roster in junior reserve defensive specialist Kenzie Dyrstad, a Papillion-La Vista South alumna. She’s averaging 1.38 digs per set in 21 sets this season.
“Rutgers is really good this year,” Busboom Kelly said. “I think it’s one of their better teams, and that’s a program that I feel like is taking volleyball more seriously as an athletic department. Certainly not just a game you can expect to go in there and beat them if you’re not prepared. So I think just taking it one game at a time and having our team realize that every win is still just a W every loss is still just a loss, and Rutgers will just be another chance to add to our resume.”
First serve on Saturday is set for 6 p.m. on Big Ten Plus.
