Bergen Reilly’s first visit to the Devaney Center took place when she was young, perhaps 8 years old, and tagging along with her sister Raegen. On that day, her dream of playing college volleyball was born.
On Friday night — all these years later — the Reilly sisters visited the Bob once again, only this time as competitors.
Raegen, a transfer from South Dakota State, landed at Illinois for her senior year, giving the sisters two opportunities to play against each other this season. Little sister won round one in Champaign 3-0 then completed the sweep in Lincoln on Friday.
“It’s so special,” Bergen said. “I don’t think that we really ever thought that this would happen again. I think we were going to see if Coach could get a noncon game in with her but having her in the Big Ten is just something that I don’t know if we imagined would happen. Now that it worked out that we played them twice — she got to come here, I got to go there — I think that that is just so special for us and I’m just I’m so proud of her for working through everything the last three years, and I’m glad that she could finish college out on a bang.”
Bergen said she shared a moment with Raegen before the match as the two recorded a TikTok together, and they had 16 family members sporting custom “Nebranois” shirts in the crowd. The Reilly parents printed 70 of the shorts, and Bergen said they gave all of them away to family and friends.
In the match, No. 2 Nebraska saved a set point in game three to pull out a 25-17, 25-19, 28-26 sweep, the Huskers’ 16th straight victory. Illinois star Raina Terry went off for 15 kills, but Nebraska’s balance won out like it has most of the season.
“Great Big Ten match; Illinois came in and played great tonight,” Coach John Cook said. “It was a really good match, and they even after losing the first two, they came out and I thought they played at a higher level in game three. They really started stressing a little bit serving in the third game and Raina’s a great player; she took some big swings. We stressed them a lot tonight with our serve, but they’re pretty good out of system because they do it a lot.”
Merritt Beason led the Huskers (19-1, 9-0 Big Ten) with 13 kills on .308 hitting and four aces. Andi Jackson put down 11 kills on 15 attacks, hitting .667 with six blocks. Harper Murray came up just short of a double-double with nine kills and nine digs.
Nebraska’s Reilly put up 40 assists, 10 digs, three kills and a block as Nebraska hit .339.
“I think Bergen is an amazing setter and she does an amazing job balancing our offense, and you can see it with our numbers,” Jackson said. “Our middles were running, our pins were running and it’s just all credit to her. She just runs a super balanced offense, and Bergen doesn’t give herself enough credit, because I like to argue that every single set she puts up is perfect. She could be anywhere on the court and she’s going to get you a perfect set.”
Nebraska held Illinois to .217 hitting as Lexi Rodriguez matched Reilly with 10 digs. Olivia Mauch chipped in five digs and served an ace, her fourth in the last four matches.
Nebraska jumped out to a 5-1 lead early behind two quick kills from Rebekah Allick, setting the tone for the match. The Illini hung around for a bit, but Nebraska used a 4-0 run to extend the lead to seven at 21-14. The Cornhuskers cruised from there and Allick closed out the set with her fourth kill on five attempts.
Murray matched Allick with four kills on nine errorless swings and led everyone with four digs. Reilly dished out 13 assists as Nebraska hit .419, adding two setter dumps, two digs and a block assist. Illinois hit .194 as Nebraska out-blocked the Illini three to zero.
The Huskers jumped in front early in set two as well with a 4-0 run for a 7-3 advantage and held onto the lead the rest of the way. Beason served a 4-0 run including a pair of aces midway through to extend the lead to six. The Illini rallied to within two with a 5-0 run, but Nebraska closed it out with a 5-1 spurt featuring three kills from Beason.
The senior captain led the way with five kills in the set with Reilly notching 14 assists. Nebraska hit .533 but allowed the Illini to hit .364. Murray added four more kills to give her eight on .500 hitting through two games.
“She was moving it around, being very creative and thumping some balls and mixing in some good tips and rolls,” Cook said of the sophomore pin. “She had them off balance.”
After smooth sailing for the Huskers through the first two sets, game three saw 18 ties and nine lead changes as neither side led by more than three points.
Illinois scored two in a row to pull ahead 19-18 late, then 13 straight sideouts followed, the last of which was a Beason kill that tied it at 24-all. Nebraska snapped the streak with a double block from Murray and Jackson to regain the lead.
Illinois saved two match points, but on the third attempt Murray induced an overpass with a great serve and Nebraska took advantage, feeding Jackson on the slide to complete the sweep.
“That’s as good as it gets for a game-point serve,” Jackson said. “A lot of girls can back down and get a little bit timid and just kind of lollipop it over the net, and I think that it was huge of Harper, and it showed just all of her confidence going for that serve. It worked out for us in the end, gave us an overpass and we could put it away.”
The third set included 43 total digs and 17 total attack errors after the teams combined for 45 digs and 11 errors in games one and two. Nebraska hit .167 and held Illinois to .137. Jackson and Beason notched six kills apiece, matching Terry.
“It was not our best volleyball in the third, and I think that they really stepped up their play too, so props to them,” Reilly said. “But we say, ‘gritty over pretty, win in the ugly,’ and I think we did that. Andi came up with some huge kills, Merrit had some, Harper had some. So just really proud of the grit that we showed at the end.”
The Huskers will return to the Devaney Center on Saturday night to face a Michigan team that swept Iowa on Friday to surpass its Big Ten win total from last season. The Wolverines are 16-4 overall (6-3 Big Ten) as Allison Jacobs and Valentina Vaulet combined for 25 kills against the Hawkeyes.
First serve is set for 7 p.m. CT on Big Ten Plus.
