No. 1 Nebraska volleyball entered Friday night’s regional semifinal match against fourth-seeded Kansas at less than full strength, but the performance looked the same as it has all season as the Huskers swept the Jayhawks to advance to the Elite Eight.
Backup setter Campbell Flynn suffered a season-ending broken pinky this week, while starter Bergen Reilly battled an illness during Friday’s match. Even so, the Huskers swept the Jayhawks 25-12, 25-11, 25-12 in a dominant all-around showing.
“I’m really proud of the way we played tonight and the way we came out and started that match,” Coach Dani Busboom Kelly said. “We faced a little adversity this week, and it was just good to see us overcome that with a statement. Congrats to Kansas for making it here. They’re a great team that’s really well coached, and it’s always bittersweet this time of year when you’re playing great and then you’re seeing teams end their season. I’m just really proud of the way we played, and we know we have a hell of a matchup on Sunday.”
Despite the latest home start time of the season, 8,800 fans packed John Cook Arena for the penultimate match of 2025 at the Devaney Center. The Huskers gave them plenty to get excited about, and the fans acted accordingly.
“I think as soon as we walked out today, we could just feel the vibes from the crowd,” Laney Choboy said. “They were probably the loudest I’ve heard for a game like this, just all around in the first set. They were so loud and energetic, so I think that it we just feed off of that. When our crowd is like going like that, it allows us to keep going like that, and when we’re having fun, we’re playing well.”
Nebraska hit .450, its third-highest percentage of the season, and held Kansas to a season-low .029. Despite the illness, Reilly finished with 30 assists, six digs and two blocks while setting her middles to a combined .750 hitting percentage.
Rebekah Allick led the way with nine kills on nine swings plus three blocks, including one solo. Andi Jackson matched her with nine kills on .600 hitting and five blocks. Harper Murray led the team with 10 digs while adding seven kills. Choboy started at libero and finished with nine digs, five assists and an ace, while Olivia Mauch added eight digs and three aces.
In all, Nebraska finished with six aces and just three errors, compared to one ace and six miscues for the Jayhawks. Kansas coach Matt Ulmer highlighted serving as one of the areas in which he’s seen Nebraska improve the most since the two teams played an exhibition back in April.
“I think we worked on our serving a lot, and we have been working on just attacking our serve over the last couple of months,” Choboy said. “I think today, we just really put the pressure on it, and it makes it hard to run an offense if the other team is serving really tough. I thought we did a really good job.”
With the match prior going five sets, the Huskers and Jayhawks had to wait around for a long time — until 9:25 p.m. CT to be exact. That didn’t seem to affect the Huskers in any way, however, as they raced out to a 10-1 lead behind a pair of strong serving runs from Choboy and Mauch. The Bennington grad capped her run with back-to-back aces out of a Jayhawk timeout.
The Huskers cruised through the rest of the set thanks to a dominant block and a scrappy effort in floor defense. At one point, Mauch kept a play alive by kicking the ball over the net, a play her coach said encapsulated Nebraska’s mentality.
“I just felt like it was just an outcome of the mentality we started the match with, that we weren’t going to let anything hit the ground,” Busboom Kelly said. “When you have plays like that going your way, there’s usually a reason for that, and I think it’s an accumulation of the hard work, mentality and the fact that Laney and Liv have been switching libero this year, and they’ve both been so good, and I think they really set the tone and played amazing in that game one.”
Nebraska recorded 18 digs and six blocks to hold Kansas to minus-.024 hitting. The Huskers only needed 12 kills, hitting .357. Allick terminated all six of her swings and added a solo block.
“We’ve prepped really, really well this week, and we were super focused at practice and in our second pass this morning,” Jackson said of the start. “Then obviously the game before us went to five, but we didn’t want that to change anything about our routine. We talked in the locker room before we went out. There are obviously some jitters in the gym, a game going five right before you, and watching that, it can make you feel a lot of emotions, but we just wanted to be where our feet are.
“We talked about that, and I think it really showed with how we went out. We didn’t let any outside noise affect us. We went in there and did the thing.”
The win broke the single-season program record for consecutive home set victories (previously 45), and Nebraska’s 48 straight sets is the second-longest streak overall behind a 52-win streak spanning the 2001 and 2002 seasons.
Taylor Landfair started the match and played all six rotations in the first set, but Teraya Sigler was back in her normal role to start the second set, serving up an overpass for an Allick kill on the first rally.
“I just saw something with T in warm-ups that scared me a little, so I thought it wouldn’t hurt to let Taylor go all the way around,” Busboom Kelly said.
Kansas kept it close for a while in the second set, but Reilly served a 5-0 run to open things up at 14-7, and Nebraska rolled from there. Choboy closed out the set on a 5-0 run including an ace on set point.
Nebraska hit .348 and held Kansas to minus-.057 as the Jayhawks had as many errors as the Huskers had kills (10). Nebraska tacked on four more blocks while Allick killed all three of her attacks.
Nebraska used a strong start in set three as well, winning eight of the first 10 rallies. A pair of Nebraska miscues allowed the Jayhawks to pull within four, but that’s as close as Kansas got. Busboom Kelly sent Mania Ogbechie in at 9-4, ending Allick’s perfect night early, and the Huskers rolled through the rest of the set with ease.
After the defense did the heavy lifting in the first two sets, the offense overwhelmed the Jayhawks in game three as Nebraska hit .621 with 19 kills and only one error. Kansas hit .222 and only managed eight kills. Landfair and Jackson led the way with four kills apiece, while Ogbechie added three kills on four errorless swings.
The Huskers will get Saturday off to recover and prepare before returning to the Devaney Center on Sunday to face No. 3 Texas A&M, who knocked off the second-seeded Louisville Cardinals in a reverse-sweep Friday night.
Logan Lednicky led the Aggies with 20 kills on .245 hitting, 12 digs and seven blocks. Kyndal Stowers added 17 kills on .300 hitting and 11 digs. Ifenna Cos-Okpalla recorded 12 blocks and nine kills on .316 hitting. Setter Maddie Waak finished with 45 assists and 12 digs as Texas A&M hit .277 and held Louisville to .229.
“I would say for us, where this team is at right now, physically and health wise, it’s an advantage for us to have a quick match tonight, so that should help us,” Busboom Kelly said of the contrasting semifinal results. “But I also think there’s an advantage A&M has of going through a super tough match, and they got a lot of jitters out, and they built some major, major confidence pulling that that game off and in a reverse sweep, so I’d say probably a good outcome for both teams.”
First serve Sunday is set for 2 p.m. on ABC.
