In the latest match at the Devaney Center that Coach John Cook can remember, No. 1 seed Nebraska volleyball fended off No. 5 Dayton in four sets Friday night to advance to Sunday’s Regional Final.
The first serve between the Huskers and Flyers hit the air at 9:18 p.m. CT and the final ball hit the ground at 11:34 as Nebraska beat Dayton 25-17, 25-18, 25-27, 25-13.
The Huskers (32-3) had to wait until everyone else had taken their turn as the last match of the regional semifinal round, and they saw that wait extended when No. 2 seed Wisconsin and No. 6 seed Texas A&M took two hours and 35 minutes to determine a winner. The Huskers were seated court side for much of the match that saw the Badgers outlast the Aggies 25-21, 18-25, 25-19, 23-25, 15-13.
When Wisconsin and Texas A&M finally left the court, the Huskers had to flip the switch and get into game mode.
“I think the biggest thing is staying present,” Rebekah Allick said of the challenges of the extended wait. “The A&M and Wisconsin match, obviously something easy to take up a lot of our attention, but the biggest thing is being able to separate ourselves from that match and not looking too far into the future. I remember, I popped into the ready room, and Coach was in there with me and I was doing some mindfulness. I’d say the biggest challenge overall is just staying present, kind of just finding out where your feet are and figuring out what you need, staying external. Sometimes even grabbing a snack is good.
“But it’s hard. You’re waiting, you’re thinking, and sometimes the strategizing can turn into worrying.”
The Flyers gave the Huskers some things to worry about when the match began as well, but Nebraska found a way to get a win when the offense wasn’t firing on all cylinders, ending Dayton’s season at 31-3.
The win was the 100th postseason victory of Cook’s head coaching career in his 125th match. Ninety-two of those wins have come at Nebraska. He joined former Penn State coach Russ Rose as the only members of the 100-win club in the NCAA Tournament.
It was also the 25th straight postseason home win for Nebraska (a program record) and 44th straight Devaney Center win overall, the longest active streak in the country. Nebraska improved to 16-1 at home in regional semifinals.
“Congrats to Dayton on their season,” Cook said. “They’re a tough team to play against. They do some really nice things. The main thing is they served really tough tonight, and I think we just had a hard time getting any kind of rhythm. I thought as the match went on, we made some good adjustments, and kind of started shutting them down, held them to .087. So I thought we did a really good job on that and I thought we served them pretty tough and created some good opportunities for us to slow them down. We got a lot of touches, a lot of digs off of them.”
Nebraska out-dug Dayton by 20 as Lexi Rodriguez tied her season high with 22 digs herself. The Cornhuskers recorded 11 blocks including seven from Andi Jackson. Nebraska totaled seven aces and just seven service errors.
Dayton star outside hitter Lexie Almodovar hit her average with 20 kills in four sets, but the Huskers held her to .132 hitting and shut her down completely in the three sets Nebraska won.
The star on Nebraska’s side of the net was Harper Murray. The sophomore went off for a career-high 22 kills on .318 hitting, tying Sarah Pavan’s rally-scoring program record for kills in a postseason match that didn’t go five sets. She added a season-high 16 digs, a career-high-tying four aces and a season-high four blocks.
“We were not in the great rhythm, and it just felt really choppy, and I just thought Harper took over the match,” Cook said. “It was pretty cool to watch. She did it serving, defensively, attacking, she had a couple blocks. But I think it started with her serving. We made a run every time she was back there, it seemed like. This time of year, you’ve got to have players step up.”
Allick added 10 kills on .368 hitting and four blocks. Bergen Reilly surpassed 2,500 career assists in the match, finishing with 47 plus six digs, four blocks, two kills and an ace.
Nebraska only hit .216 as a team, however, as Taylor Landfair and Merritt Beason combined for 11 kills and nine errors while Jackson hit well below her average at .222. Lindsay Krause was not with the team during the match because of an illness.
Dayton jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the first set before Nebraska settled in. The Huskers tied it a couple of times before taking their first lead at 14-13, then Nebraska scored four straight to create an 18-14 advantage.
During the run, Dayton setter Alyssa Miller suffered a leg injury that forced her to the bench for treatment. The Flyers cut Nebraska’s lead to two, but the Huskers responded with a 6-0 run featuring Reilly at the service line to seal it.
Dayton only managed one kill after Miller subbed out and hit .051 for the set. Nebraska hit .273 and notched five more kills than the Flyers.
The Huskers got off to a faster start in set two, using a 6-1 run to open a 9-4 lead. The Flyers pushed back, cutting the deficit to one at one point, but Nebraska stretched it back out with a 5-0 run including three straight aces from Murray.
Nebraska gave three points back via errors, but the Huskers regrouped during a timeout to close out the set with a 4-1 stretch.
Nebraska won despite hitting .056 and committing eight attack errors. The Huskers held Dayton to eight kills and .025 hitting, recording 22 digs. Miller returned midway through the set with her left leg heavily wrapped and finished the match, but she showed up to the press conference afterward on crutches.
The third set turned into a duel between Almodovar and Murray with the stars combining for 23 of the 35 kills in the frame. The set saw 13 ties and seven lead changes as the Flyers got the better of Nebraska early before the Huskers rallied late.
Dayton earned the first set point at 24-23, but Murray responded with back-to-back kills to give Nebraska match point. Almodovar responded with two kills of her own to put the Flyers back in front, then Dayton stuffed Murray at the net to win it and extend the match.
Almodovar tallied 12 kills on 18 errorless swings as Dayton hit .333 overall. Murray nearly matched her with 11 kills, but the rest of the Huskers only mustered five more kills between them as Nebraska hit .263.
After a bit of back and forth play early in set three, Nebraska took control with a 5-0 run featuring a kill and a pair of block assists from Jackson. That put the Huskers up 10-4, and they gradually stretched it out from there.
“We just talked about trying to get in a better rhythm, trying to get into a rhythm in transition offensively,” Cook said. “Because in the third game it was just like we’re running on five cylinders, not eight. We just tried to get in a rhythm, and we came out and started off really nice.”
Reilly served a 5-0 run including an ace to make it 16-7, then Olivia Mauch served her own 5-0 run including another ace to extend the lead to 21-8 before the Huskers closed it out.
Nebraska finished strong, hitting .296 and holding Dayton to minus-.148. Murray out-killed Dayton by herself, four to three.
“We competed hard,” Cook said. “You saw some of those rallies; if we were in practice and I had the whistle, I probably would have blown the whistle several times because I thought the rally was done, the ball was down. So we played really hard. It’s just it never felt like we were in a great flow.
“But like I told them, you don’t play six perfect matches in the tournament. There are going to be times where it’s going to be ugly and you’ve got to struggle, you’ve got to win ugly and fight through it and keep pushing through it. If you look at the stats in the fourth game, we held them to negative-.148 and we hit almost .300, so that was a nice finish by us.”
Nebraska’s reward is a day to recharge and prepare for Sunday afternoon, when the Huskers will take on Wisconsin for the third time this season.
The Badgers outlasted the Aggies in the first Lincoln Regional semifinal behind 21 kills from two-time Big Ten Player of the Year Sarah Franklin and Carter Booth’s 14 kills and nine blocks.
Sunday’s regional final is set for 2 p.m. CT on ABC with Courtney Lyle, Holly McPeak, Katie George and Madison Fitzpatrick on the call.
