After Nebraska lost to Wisconsin in 2022, assistant coach Jaylen Reyes sent a simple message in his group chat with the program’s 2023 commits.
“That’s not happening again.”
Their response?
“Yeah, we’ve got it.”
Fast-forward a year to Saturday night when the unbeaten and top-ranked Badgers visited Lincoln again. Four of those recruits were in the starting lineup for the second-ranked Huskers.
The showdown between the top two teams in the country was the first opportunity for the young Huskers to back up their words, and they did so in spectacular fashion as Nebraska took down the Badgers in a five-set thriller to snap a 10-match losing streak to its conference rival.
“I think that mentality the freshmen have, and I know that Merritt [Beason] is a big part of that just because we all look to her as a leader and having her there for us,” Harper Murray said. “But the freshmen, we know we have big roles on this team and we have to prove that. So just having that mentality and going out there every day just swinging.”
Nebraska swung away and toppled Wisconsin 25-22, 17-25, 20-25, 26-24, 15-13 with match point coming via a successful challenge for a net violation from Coach John Cook.
“Just another match in the Big Ten,” Cook said. “But you saw a team that really, really fought through a lot of challenges tonight. Things weren’t going our way, Wisconsin was playing really well, we were really struggling in games two and three, and that team did not quit. They kept believing and we kept telling them it’s going to come down to two points at the end of game four and two points in game five, and thank goodness they give you an extra green card and in game five. So I did my job and got got the final point.”
Nebraska faced match point in game four yet pulled off the come-from-behind victory then finished strong in game five to hand Wisconsin its first loss of the season despite recording 44 attack errors, 26 more than the Badgers.
“It was not pretty, at all, and we knew that,” Beason said. “We just kind of had to figure out like, ‘OK, we’re not playing our best volleyball across the board, but we’re still going to figure out a way to win,’ and at the end of the day, we just talked about having each other’s backs no matter what happens. I don’t really know how we did it with 44 attack errors, but we did.”
Beason led the way for Nebraska with 21 kills on .154 hitting, seven digs and an ace. Murray added 14 kills on .091 hitting and 15 digs. Ally Batenhorst, filling in for the injured Lindsay Krause, put up 13 kills on .075 hitting. Bergen Reilly dished out 50 assists with 17 digs, four kills and an ace as Nebraska hit .130.
“I’m just blown away with his team, how they could stay in It through all that and still believe,” Cook said. “Harper’s great. Merritt was hitting negative and ends up getting 21 kills. I thought Ally had some huge kills for us when we needed it. Bergen struggled at times but look what we hit in game five; Bergen set a masterful game five.”
Lexi Rodriguez tied Reilly with 17 digs while Laney Choboy added 11. Nebraska held Wisconsin to .223 hitting, nearly 100 points below its league-leading season average.
The staying-room-only sections were packed two-deep in most spots as Nebraska set a new Devaney Center attendance record with 9,198 fans in the building to see Nebraska improve to 19-0 overall and 10-0 at the halfway point of Big Ten play.
“What was great was this match had a lot of build up,” Cook said. “It was the first time two undefeated teams 1 and 2 played against each other since 1998. So there was a lot of hype, the crowd was fired up tonight, football got a great win today which made it even better and it was a match for the ages tonight. Two great teams battling every point and it was a great match. We just happened to find a way to be two points better.”
The teams traded sideouts on the first eight rallies of the match. Nebraska finally snapped the streak with a 6-0 run featuring Choboy at the service line, surging ahead 9-4. The Husker lead bounced between five and three a handful of times before Wisconsin used a 4-1 run to cut it to two at 22-20.
The Huskers responded with back-to-back-kills from Batenhorst to earn set point. Nebraska hit long on the next two rallies but closed it out on its third set-point attempt as Andi Jackson and Reilly teamed up for a block.
Nebraska hit .214. Murray, Batenhorst and Beason notched four kills apiece as Reilly spread the ball around with 13 assists. The Huskers recorded 20 digs including eight from Rodriguez and held Wisconsin to .125 hitting.
Wisconsin set the tone early in set two with back-to-back blocks to open the game. After three ties, Wisconsin used a 3-0 run to take the lead at 8-5 and maintained it the rest of the way as the Huskers hit into the Badger block again and again. The Wisconsin lead peaked at 10 before Nebraska saved three set points, but thee rally was merely cosmetic as a service error ended the set.
Nebraska hit minus-.077 with 16 attack errors, 12 of which were Wisconsin blocks. The Badgers only recorded seven kills and hit .138 as they let their defense do most of the scoring. Nebraska took 23 more swings than the Badgers.
“I think it was more mental than physical at the end of the day,” Beason said. “Getting stuff-blocked that many times is a very big mental obstacle, and so we went to the locker room and we were like, ‘Look, it’s 0-0 right now in between the second and third set; it doesn’t matter what just happened in that set. We just have to go out there and keep swinging. We knew that we couldn’t just start roll-shotting and tipping balls because they would just transition them and get kills. So we just kind of had to make a few adjustments, swing really high and keep swinging hard and find ways to get kills. They’re a great team, they’re a huge, physical team and they’re going to get blocks, but we just had to find ways to get around them.”
Nebraska’s offensive woes continued into the third set as the Huskers shifted from hitting into the block to hitting outside the court. Wisconsin used a 4-0 run to build an 11-5 lead midway through and continued to roll from there, extending the advantage to eight at 20-12.
Nebraska dug deep to make it a game, putting together an 8-3 run capped by a Beason ace to pull within three at 23-20, but the magic ran out as Wisconsin closed it out with a kill and a block.
Wisconsin out-hit Nebraska .306 to .108. Beason notched six kills but the rest of the team hit in the negative.
Wisconsin led early in set four, but Nebraska used a 5-0 run to surge ahead and take a 9-6 lead. The Huskers extended the lead out to four at 14-10 before Wisconsin began chipping away, trimming the deficit to two then ripping off a 6-1 run to jump back in front, 21-18.
The Huskers answered with their own run featuring a Reilly setter dump and a Kennedi Orr ace to tie it at 21-all. The Huskers misfired two straight times but won the next two rallies to tie it up again. Wisconsin earned match point with a Temi Thomas-Ailara kill, but Murray responded with her first kill of the set, Wisconsin got caught in the net and Murray served an overpass that Bekka Allick terminated to send the mach to a game five.
Wisconsin out-hit Nebraska .147 to .100 but the Huskers still found a way to win behind another six kills from Beason.
The Badgers got off to a good start in set five, but Nebraska countered with a 3-1 run to tie it up at 6-6. A service error gave Wisconsin the lead, then Thomas-Ailara terminated to put Wisconsin up 8-6 at the changeover. Nine straight sideouts followed before Murray went off-speed for a kill to tie up at 12-12, spurring a Wisconsin timeout.
Out of the break, the Huskers went to Murray again and she terminated to break the tie, then she swung again on match-point. Her attack sailed wide, but at the urging of Reilly and the other Huskers, Cook pulled the challenge card and the officials saw via review that Caroline Crawford had clipped the net.
Murray took over in game five, recording seven kills on nine errorless swings as Nebraska hit .545 as a team. The Badgers hit .500 as well, but Nebraska made the plays at the end to win.
“We’ve talked about it all year, this team is very gritty and very resilient and there’s never a doubt in any of our heads that we’re going to lose,” Beason said. “Even after that second set, there was never a doubt that we were going to lose. We knew that we were going to find a way to come back.
“I think having 44 errors and finding a way to win just speaks to how our team is, we’re going to find a way even in the ugly. That’s what we’ve been talking about a lot this year is winning in the ugly, no matter what, and so we always find a way. I think that’s one of our biggest strengths is we’re just going to have each other’s backs and figure out a way to get around it.”
With the win, Nebraska will rise to No. 1 in the country in the polls on Monday and take sole possession of first place in the Big Ten. However, the Huskers still have a long way to go. As Cook said, it was only match 10, and a rematch with the Badgers awaits at the end of the regular season.
