Teraya Sigler was the top-ranked player in the 2025 class, though Nebraska volleyball fans only got to see a glimpse of her talent last fall. She initially earned her way onto the court as a back-row specialist, and a back injury hampered her over the second half of the season.
However, she’s healthy now and has been tearing it up this spring as a six-rotation player.
“I think the most important thing is that mentally, I think I’m stronger too,” Sigler said of navigating the back injury. “Yes, injury is hard on your body, and it’s hard to come back through physically, but mentally building that confidence and the trust in your teammates and trusting yourself, I think my teammates and my coaches have done a really good job of making sure that I’m maintaining this health and building off of it and getting stronger, but not overdoing it. And so I think just coming back healthier, but also more confident, I think, is something I’m proud of, rather than just the injury.”
Sigler said her mindset this spring has been to “go for it,” and that has resulted in 19 kills in the five sets she’s played against Iowa State and Creighton.
“That’s kind of the phrase I’ve been saying in practice, is go for it,” Sigler said. “This is the time to make mistakes and the time to make errors, go for it and kind of figure it out. I think it’s really important to have that in our practice gym, because you don’t grow when everything’s going right. You grow when things are kind of rocky and you’re just building off of taking risk.”
So far this spring, it’s been all reward for Sigler as she’s has yet to commit an attack error. She’s hitting .613 while terminating from all over the court. Heading into the spring exhibitions, Coach Dani Busboom Kelly highlighted out-of-system attacking as the point of emphasis for the heavy-armed attacker as she seeks to earn an expanded role as a sophomore.
“I see that as trust from my coach,” Sigler said of the challenge. “I think that if she was OK with just being average, I don’t think that she would really care for me as a player and as a person. And so for her just to acknowledge the fact that, even as a team, I feel like she always acknowledges the fact of what we do well, but we can always get better. And so I think hearing that and pushing to always get better, and just not just perfect situations, but situations that happen a lot in volleyball, I think it’s just showing confidence, that she has confidence in me that I can always get better, and I can always pour into myself.”
Busboom Kelly has given all her outside hitters — Sigler included — an opportunity to play all the way around in the first two exhibitions, which has led to some highlight-reel back-row kills. The Huskers are using the reps now to develop that attack into even more of a weapon for the team come the fall.
“It’s a huge advantage to have multiple attackers in every rotation,” Busboom Kelly said. “We work hard on our back-row attack, and we want everybody to feel like they can score from there so when they’re put in that situation, they’re confident.”
The Huskers will close out their spring exhibition schedule against Northern Colorado at Chadron State College’s Chicoine Center, continuing the program’s yearly tradition of playing a spring exhibition at a small Nebraska town. Chadron joins North Platte, Scottsbluff, Grand Island, Norfolk, Wayne, Ogallala, Kearney, McCook, Central City and Ord on the list of host towns for the Nebraska exhibition.
The allotment of 1,600 tickets sold out within a couple hours of going on sale in person in Chadron.
“I think it’s such a cool opportunity to just get to travel around the state, especially for how much volleyball is celebrated here,” Sigler said. “I think it’s the coolest thing ever to go to a random high school in Nebraska and just play volleyball and just celebrate the fact that we just all love volleyball and support each other in that. I think it’s just a super cool tradition to do, and it means a lot, especially returning from last year and getting to experience this again. I’m really thankful that we get to do that. I know a lot of schools don’t, so I think it’s a super cool thing, and we should cherish it.”
The Bears went 17-16 last season but won the Big Sky Volleyball Championship to qualify for the NCAA Tournament, where they pushed Creighton to five sets in the first round. Northern Colorado returned its leaders in kills (Alayna Tessena, 3.13 per set), assists (Nerea Alvarez Jorge, 8.24 per set) and digs (Bella LePore, 2.55 per set). The Bears also have a Lincoln native on the roster in Southwest graduate Maddie Rink, a 6-foot-3 middle blocker heading into her sophomore season.
Busboom Kelly wants to see her team continue its strong play from the first two exhibitions, but Saturday is more about the experience for both her players and the fans than anything else.
“I think Chadron is more of a celebration of the state and taking our team all the way out west and to enjoy the people out there,” Busboom Kelly said. “I know northern Colorado will be a totally different type of team than the teams we’ve played, so how do we adjust to that? I want to see us get a little bit better, but I know we only have one week left, and how can we enjoy that and set everybody up for an awesome offseason where they’re really excited to come back in June, and not dreading coming back? We’ll have a really fun and really tough week.”
First serve is set for 1 p.m. CT (noon mountain time for fans attending the match) and Nebraska Public Media will stream the match. Out-of-state fans can stream it on Big Ten Plus with a subscription. Larry Punteney and Terry Pettit will be on the call.
