Dani Busboom Kelly’s offseason challenge to her Nebraska volleyball team was to become the best serving squad in the country. The top-ranked Huskers looked every bit of that on Sunday as they swept No. 2 Texas at the Players Era Volleyball Showcase.
The Huskers dispatched their old conference rival 25-19, 25-19, 25-16 in front of an announced crowd of 9,747 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, improving to 2-0 on the season behind a strong day from the end line.
Nebraska finished with seven aces and only six errors (plus several overpasses by the Longhorns), while the Longhorns misfired eight times without recording an ace. Four different Huskers served aces, with two apiece for three of them.
“Against any team, serving is really important, but against a super physical team like Texas, it might be the most important thing,” Busboom Kelly said. “You really want your players to have a lot of confidence back there, and that’s harder than you think until you’ve been in that position. It’s tough to go back there and rip a serve in a big moment against a great team. So I’m just really proud that our hard work and practice paid off today, and that our mindset more than anything paid off.”
Nebraska senior Bergen Reilly shows off her ring after winning MVP of the Players Era Showcase in Las Vegas. Photo by Sean Jorgensen.
Bergen Reilly earned Players Era Showcase MVP after setting a balanced Nebraska offense to a .293 hitting percentage with 30 assists, a team-high five digs, two aces and two kills.
Andi Jackson led the attack with nine kills on .571 hitting and an ace. Harper Murray added eight kills, and although she hit just .091 with six errors, Busboom Kelly praised her passing and highlighted her importance to the team whether she’s terminating at a high clip or not. Manaia Ogbechie finished with seven kills on .308 hitting and seven blocks while Teraya Sigler matched her with seven kills on .357 hitting and added two aces.
Nebraska held Texas (2-2) to .152 hitting, with the strong serving and a dominant blocking edge (10 to four) contributing heavily.
“They’re a very good attacking team, and we watched their film and we did a lot of scouting on them, and we knew that they like to set the ball tight to the net,” Jackson said. “They’re an aggressive team, like Dani said. They’re super physical, so they’re going to go up there and challenge the block. We just knew that we needed to be low and over, nice and disciplined. There wasn’t anything different that we had to do necessarily, just low and over and play our game. We practice out-of-system blocking also every single day, so going back to the basics, knowing what we need to do, and I think we put ourselves in really good positions.
“Manaia especially, she blocked phenomenally today. She’s been blocking phenomenally, but I think you can just see the calm demeanor on the court when it comes to our team blocking. Everyone just it looks super confident when they’re out there and super calm.”
Middle blocker Nya Bunton was the only Longhorn with multiple attacks to hit over .150, and Nebraska limited her to just six swings after she totaled 10 kills on .643 hitting in the sweep over No. 18 TCU on Saturday night.
The Longhorns played without sophomore outside hitter Abby Vander Wal, who injured her knee against the Horned Frogs. Without one of their top attackers, Coach Jerritt Elliott shifted to a 5-1 system with Rella Binney serving after opening the season in a 6-2. Elliott announced after that match that Vander Wal’s injury is season ending.
Sunday was the first meeting for the two former conference rivals since Texas served Nebraska off the court in the 2023 national championship. While the players expressed excitement in the preseason about playing the Longhorns again, they were focused on the task at hand Sunday rather than seeking revenge from four years ago — especially considering there’s only one player on Texas’ roster who was a part of that championship team.
“It really starts at the top with the leaders, and those are our four seniors,” Busboom Kelly said of her team’s focus. “When they have this great mentality, it just bleeds into the whole team. They’ve learned a lot in their careers, and sometimes it’s tough to put that into action, but these four are on a different level this year, just of what they want to do, how they’re communicating, how they’re leading. Again, to see that in action, and you think you see it every day in practice, and you think you feel it, and OK, it’s there, but is it really?
“To see that against a great opponent in a really fun environment that feels pretty big time was huge for us and that’s just going to pay off later.”
First Set
Reilly may have secured MVP honors at the beginning of the match, serving a 10-0 run including an ace to give Nebraska a 15-8 lead early. The senior had the Longhorns all out of sorts as they contributed seven attack errors to Nebraska point total (to just six kills for the Huskers themselves). Extended serving runs proved to be the theme of the match for Nebraska.
“I see a lot of consistency from Bergen,” Jackson said. “I think you can just see it in her play on the court. She’s always super consistent, super calm demeanor, and you could really see that in her run in the first set. She went back there, had tons of confidence. Whatever zone they gave her, she was hitting it, and she made it really tough for them to side out.
“I think that’s what we need from the service line, we need to put pressure on teams from the service line. We’ve worked really hard on that this preseason and then over the summer. Huge credit to Bergen and her consistent demeanor, her consistent ability to put pressure on teams, and also just her calm demeanor that keeps people level-headed on the court.”
Texas settled in after that, trimming the deficit to two three times late, but Nebraska responded with big kills from Jackson and Sigler before Reilly returned to the end line and served out the set, closing on a 4-0 run including another ace on set point.
Nebraska out-hit Texas .292 to .069. The Huskers only managed 11 kills, but they didn’t need more with the Longhorns contributing 10 points via attack errors and another two via service errors.
Second Set
Nebraska fell behind 4-1 to start the second set, but this time it was defensive specialist Laney Choboy who provided the spark. After Virginia Adriano served in the first set, Busboom Kelly turned to Choboy in the second, and the senior responded with a 6-0 run including an ace and an overpass to set up an easy kill for Murray.
Manaia Ogbechie (14) and Bergen Reilly (2) elevate for a block, one of 10 stuffs for Nebraska against Texas in the Players Era Showcase. Photo by Sean Jorgensen.
The Huskers maintained the lead until Choboy’s second turn at the service line, and she broke it open even further with a 4-0 spurt for an 18-10 edge.
“We’ve been working really hard in practice on our serving, and that’s something that I really tried to buy into in the spring and the summer and then preseason was just my serving and just taking risk and not just trying to get the ball in the court,” Choboy said. “So I think I went back there just feeling comfortable and confident because I’ve been doing it in practice every day.”
Nebraska cruised from there, and with the Huskers leading 22-15 late, Busboom Kelly gave Skyler Pierce a look on the right side.
“Virginia’s got a pretty terminal arm, but we know that we need some other players ready in that position, and Skyler’s been having an awesome preseason and I wanted to see what she could do over there,” Busboom Kelly said during her post-match interview on the Huskers Radio Network. “It won’t be a rotating door, but we’re going to work other players in and see what they can do when we can.”
Nebraska eventually closed out the set with a kill from Jackson to take a 2-0 lead.
Texas out-hit Nebraska .385 to .342, but with the Longhorns’ passing struggles, Nebraska took six more swings to tally two more kills and benefitted from four Texas service errors. Jackson went off for five kills on six swings.
Third Set
Nebraska’s serving dominance continued into the third set as Sigler opened the frame with another ace and a forced overpass for an Ogbechie kill. Texas briefly tied it up at 5-all, but Nebraska responded with a 5-1 run including four Husker kills (two by Murray) to take the lead for good.
Another Sigler ace helped the Huskers push the lead to seven midway through the set and Nebraska kept the Longhorns at a safe distance the rest of the way. The Cornhuskers closed out the set with a 4-0 run featuring Jackson at the service line.
Nebraska’s defense again carried it home as the Huskers held the Longhorns to .000 while hitting .231 themselves.
Up Next
After trips to Texas and Las Vegas, Nebraska will briefly stop at home before hitting the road again for a midweek match. The Huskers will head to Brookings, S.D., for a Wednesday match against South Dakota State, then soon after they’ll head to Chicago for two more matches — against DePaul at Wintrust Arena Friday and against Missouri at Wrigley Field on Sunday.
“It feels like about 24 hours and we’ll be gone, and then we’ll be back for 24 hours and then gone, so it’s going to be a crazy week,” Busboom Kelly said. “Maybe these opponents aren’t top-five, top-10 opponents, but we’re putting our team in situations that are going to create a little adversity. This first week was kind of all over the place, but I think it was good, and it’s good to work through that and not let little things bother us and make sure we can adjust.
“I’m just really proud of that, and we’re going to have to carry that over to this next seven-day trip of matches.”
