No. 1 Nebraska volleyball dropped its first set of conference play but rallied to take down No. 13 Purdue in four sets at the Devaney Center Saturday.
The Cornhuskers topped the Boilermakers (11-6, 4-4 Big Ten) 25-13, 20-25, 25-19, 25-14 to improve to 19-0 overall and 8-0 in Big Ten Play.
The second-set loss snapped Nebraska’s streak of consecutive sweeps at eight, but Coach Dani Busboom Kelly said sweeping every match isn’t something the Huskers talk about.
“That’s like saying in basketball, I’m going to hold every team under like 50 points,” the head coach said. “It’s unrealistic, so we don’t talk about it. I think that’s for social media to talk about.”
Nebraska saw four players tally double-digit kills as Bergen Reilly set the Huskers to a .303 hitting percentage while recording 44 assists, 15 digs, five blocks, two kills and an ace. Teraya Sigler continued her torrid pace with a career-high 15 kills on .355 hitting, her sixth straight match over .350.
Harper Murray added 13 kills and eight digs, Virginia Adriano chipped in a season-high 11 kills on .381 hitting plus four blocks and Manaia Ogbechie made her return to the lineup with 10 kills on 14 errorless swings (.717 hitting) and five blocks. The sophomore missed the trip to Northwestern with an illness.
The last two winners of Big Ten Player of the Week combined for 11 errors as Murray hit .187 and Jackson a season-low .067 with seven kills, but the Huskers still cleared .300 as a team.
“I just think that it’s a definition of a team win,” Sigler said. “We obviously work so hard so we all can hit efficiently, but that doesn’t take away from the gutsy swings that Harper had to take, or the gutsy swings that Andi had to take, or Andi passing a short serve and then going for a dog and still getting a kill, and I think that, obviously, the stats don’t show that, but in the game, they work so hard to do what they do … I think just to be able to know that we have so many weapons in so many different areas of the game is such a confidence boost for our team.”
Nebraska out-blocked Purdue 12-6 and out-dug the Boilermakers 64-46 to hold them to a .133 hitting percentage. Libero Olivia Mauch made a big difference both defensively and offensively with a career-high 21 digs, eight assists and Nebraska’s other ace on the day.
“It’s awesome,” Mauch said of setting a season-high in digs for a Husker. “I couldn’t do it without my block. They have been so good throughout the whole season, so kudos to them, and it makes it really easy for me to dig behind them.”
Olivia Mauch keeps a ball alive against Purdue. She finished with a career-high 21 digs. Photo by Jackson D. Luethje.
Prior to the match, Mauch also shared a moment with former club teammate Grace Heaney, a redshirt junior opposite hitter for Purdue who hails from Elkhorn (Neb.) North High School. Mauch delivered her mini volleyball to Heaney during starting lineups, and the lefty received a nice ovation from the Husker crowd before that. She finished with nine kills on .250 hitting, eight digs, three blocks and an ace.
“Oh my gosh, I love Grace,” Mauch said. “I was teammates with her in club for two years, and she’s just a great person on and off the court, and just so fun to be around and play with.”
First Set
After feeling each other out early on, Murray gave the Huskers the lead for good with a 5-0 serving run featuring two kills and a block from Jackson. Soon after, Reilly one-upped her pin with a 6-0 run at the line, including an ace, to build a 14-5 lead.
After 11 straight sideouts and a 3-0 Purdue run to chip away at the deficit, Reilly slammed the door shut with another 6-0 serving run as Sigler blasted a kill off a Purdue defender on set point to end it.
“She just hit her zones, and Purdue’s a really good passing team, so you know they’re going to pass well,” Busboom Kelly said of her setter’s serving. “It’s just can you disrupt their offense when they are passing well, and I thought she did a great job.”
In addition to her work at the line, Reilly dished out 14 assists as Nebraska hit .455. Adriano terminated on all five of her swings to lead the attack while Nebraska’s defense held Purdue to .036 hitting and just seven kills.
Second Set
Game two saw two lead changes and seven ties, the last at 10-10. Then Purdue made its move.
The Boilermakers won the next two rallies before a Nebraska block, then Purdue ripped off six more points with setter Taylor Anderson serving to build an 18-11 lead. Murray finally got the Huskers out of that rotation with a kill off the block, sparking a 6-1 run to get her team right back in the game at 19-17 and draw a Purdue timeout. The stoppage proved effective in halting Nebraska’s momentum, with back-to-back errors from the Huskers following the break.
Nebraska got a couple back with a Sigler kill and a Purdue error, but the Boilermakers won four of the last five rallies to end Nebraska’s streak of consecutive set victories at 26.
The Cornhuskers contributed eight attack errors, a service error and a reception error to Purdue’s 15 kills as the Boilermakers out-hit Nebraska .237 to .118. Sigler had five kills and Murray added four for Nebraska, but reigning Big Ten Freshman of the Week Addy Tindall racked up seven for the opposition.
Third Set
Busboom Kelly pointed to Nebraska’s difficulty in passing Purdue’s short serves as a big part of the Huskers’ second-set struggles, but they turned things around in the third set.
“I thought we did a really nice job of refocusing,” Busboom Kelly said. “We had worked on passing short serves for like two weeks, because that’s kind of Purdue’s game, so it was a little disappointing not see us execute, but I thought we made great adjustments and they did a great job and got us out of rhythm. I was proud to see us get back in rhythm fairly quickly.”
Game three saw seven more ties and four lead changes. The longest run of the set was 3-0 by Nebraska as both sides recorded a healthy sideout rate. Neither team led by more than two points until back-to-back Sigler kills made it 14-11, then a kill and a block from Ogbechie extended it to 18-14.
Purdue battled back to within one at 19-18, but Nebraska closed the set on a 6-1 stretch including three Sigler kills and a solo block from Reilly on a joust.
Nebraska hit .293 behind six kills from Sigler.
Teraya Sigler elevates for one of her career-high 15 kills against Purdue. Photo by Jackson D. Luethje.
“I obviously had some shaky hitting errors during that second and even the beginning of the third, of just like, ‘OK, how can I get out of this?’ and not sitting here and sulking about it, and letting it kind of dictate how my match is going to go,” Sigler said. “Obviously, you’re going to make attack errors; whether they’re good, whether they’re not, you’re going to make attack errors. That’s how sports work, and so learning to just pick my head up and just keep going for it …
“That was kind of a reality check for me of I need to be here for my team. Forget myself and my stats, but how can I be there for my team to help them win, however that looks like?”
After zero kills and three errors on four attacks in the second set, Adriano found a rhythm again with five kills on nine errorless swings. Sigler said “resilient” was the word to describe the opposite hitter’s performance.
“A couple swings don’t define you as an attacker and it can be hard obviously because we have to understand that these people are scouting us, and we’re scouting them, and so them making adjustments, them having to go towards tendencies or whatever is just normal,” Sigler said. “And so I think from her it’s just being a leader in that aspect of she never shied away from swinging, and I think that’s just a kudos to her and kudos to even Bergen to keep setting her, and out-of-system with Liv to keep setting her, that she’s capable of, no matter the past swings, no matter the past errors, she’s capable of doing hard things for us.
“I just think she was super resilient today.”
Nebraska recorded 22 digs — including nine by Mauch — to hold Purdue to a .186 clip.
Fourth Set
The final game looked to be another nailbiter with seven early ties, the last at 8-all. Then Adriano terminated for a sideout, sending Mauch back to the line. From there, she served eight more points — assisting three of them herself, all to Murray, and scoring another via an ace — to blow the game open.
Sigler said Mauch’s serving run is just the latest example of the way she and Laney Choboy are capable of taking over a match.
“These two are just such a dynamic duo of going back there and causing problems,” Sigler said. “Obviously not just on floor defense, but with serving and just getting teams out of system and making it hard for them to score. I was thinking about this earlier of it’s so hard to score in our gym in the first place. These girls are just diving all over the court, making these incredible digs, and it’s hard, but then it translates to when we go and play. When we play, everything’s up, and if not up, then it has to be earned.”
The Huskers pushed the lead to 10 with a 3-0 run then won four of the last five rallies to put an exclamation point on the victory. Perhaps to reward her for a great match, Busboom Kelly gave Adriano an opportunity to serve for the first time since the Creighton match during that 3-0 run, and she took advantage of it.
Murray finished the match on a high note, tallying half of Nebraska 12 kills on .417 hitting. The Huskers hit .375 overall and let their defense take over, totaling five blocks and holding Purdue to .029 hitting.
Next Up
The Huskers will get two more home matches next week before hitting the road for the following two weeks. The California schools will travel east as Nebraska hosts UCLA on Thursday before facing USC on Saturday.
