Oftentimes, the stat sheet will tell you all you need to know about an athletic contest. The box score for No. 2 Nebraska volleyball’s five-set win over No. 10 Purdue on Friday was a different story.
The Boilermakers (12-4, 3-2 Big Ten) hit over .300 and out-blocked Nebraska by 10, yet the Huskers (15-1, 5-0) found a way to weather the onslaught and pull out a come-from-behind win in the fifth for a 25-22, 22-25, 23-25, 25-22, 17-15 victory in front of a juiced Devaney Center crowd.
“Welcome to Big Ten volleyball,” Coach John Cook said. “Purdue played great tonight. It was a heavyweight fight and it’s almost too bad somebody had to lose that one. They gave a great effort tonight. I was very impressed with Eva [Hudson] and Chloe [Chicoine]; they put on a show tonight. And I still don’t know quite how we won it, but we’re going to take it.”
Cook said the Huskers were out of sync offensive all night, as evidenced by their 31 attack errors, but Nebraska still hit .242 as Bergen Reilly dished out a career-high 60 assists to go with a match-high 17 digs.
“She’s just so consistent with her demeanor, and I think that’s huge for a setter,” Merritt Beason said of the sophomore setter. “It’s pretty hard to play with the setter when they’re up and down, because it’s like, ‘I don’t really know what to expect from you, I don’t know if you’re mad at me, I don’t know if you’re mad at yourself.’ But that’s what she does really well, and you kind of have to be that way when you’re touching the ball every single point. She’s just so calm and so steady throughout the highs and the lows, and I think that’s what makes her so special.
“Obviously we can talk about her sets, and we know those are great, but I think her demeanor is what helps us the most in moments like that, and just that demeanor also allows us as hitters to know that she has trust in us.”
Beason was on the receiving end of nearly a third of those assists, finishing with a team-high 22 kills on .278 hitting while leading the team with 54 attacks. Harper Murray added 17 kills on .209 hitting while logging 50 serve receive reps as the Boilermakers targeted her all night.
Andi Jackson returned to the lineup after missing last week’s matches with an undisclosed injury and dropped 14 kills on .429 hitting and four blocks. She terminated on 10 of her first 11 swings, forcing the Boilermakers to commit more defensive attention to her as the match went on. Fellow middle blocker Rebekah Allick added 10 kills on .333 hitting.
Lindsay Krause got the start, though she and Taylor Landfair rotated in and out as both struggled to terminate. Krause finished with four kills on .050 hitting while Landfair added six kills on .125. Cook said he’s still looking for somebody to “step up and show that they want it” at the OH1 spot.
“Lindsay was a little tentative tonight, Taylor was tentative,” Cook said. “And then Taylor did get a couple kills in game four, and she got one in game five, but you look at the combination, Taylor had six, Lindsay had 10 kills. Eva had 26 so we’ve got to get more production from that spot.”
Hudson (26 kills on .349 hitting) and Chicoine (22 kills on .327) were anything but tentative. The Huskers only recorded five stuff blocks all night while the dynamic outside duo for the Boilermakers had success tooling most of the night.
“They’re really good players,” Jackson said. “You’ve got to give credit where credit is due. They’re very smart, they had a lot of shots, and I think sometimes at this level, you’ll see outsides who really only have one shot, and once you can take that away from them, you kind of see them start to shut down. But they did a really good job being consistent and when we took something from them, then they found another way to will points.”
Purdue hit .311 but handed Nebraska 19 points from the service line via errors, allowing the Huskers to offset the gap in attack efficiency. The Huskers only missed seven serves and out-aced Purdue three to one.
“I think one thing that I’m really proud of this team is normally, if our defense isn’t going how it always is, and that’s something that we rely on, we kind of used to shut down,” Beason said. “That’s what happened at SMU, they were rolling offensively, and we were kind of like, ‘What do we do?’ But we didn’t do that tonight, and that’s what we’ve been working on.”
Both teams had a tough time terminating consistently against the other’s defense early in set one before settling in. The set featured nine ties and two lead changes with little separation until the end. Jackson took over down the stretch, terminating three times in four rallies to give the Huskers set point at 24-21. Purdue won the next point, but Reilly went to Beason out of the back row to finish it off.
Purdue out-hit Nebraska .324 to .282, but the Boilermakers had four service errors while Nebraska was clean from the line while notching an ace. Jackson went 5-for-5 in her return to the court.
“It was really fun,” Jackson said. “It honestly felt like I never left, just because when I was out, the team was so supportive, and even when I was in street clothes on the bench, I just felt so included because the team just does an amazing job making you feel surrounded with all of their love.”
The teams went back and forth early in set two until Purdue put together a 4-0 run — aided by three Nebraska errors — to pull ahead 12-8. The Boilermakers extended the lead out to six at 19-13 before the Huskers began to chip away, scoring four straight to pull within two.
However, Chicoine dropped the ball in the middle of the donut for a kill, then back-to-back Nebraska attack errors extended the lead back to five. Purdue traded sideouts to earn set point at 24-19. The Huskers ripped off three straight kills from there before Hudson closed it out.
Purdue continued to operate at a high level offensively, hitting .278. Nebraska hit .146 with eight errors in the set. Murray led the way with five kills on 10 errorless swings, but the rest of the team only mustered nine kills on 31 attacks. Landfair replaced Krause midway through the set and produced one kill and two errors on five attacks.
Purdue used a 4-0 run to break an early tie again in set three, earning a 9-5 advantage as Nebraska continued to splutter offensively. The Huskers rallied to tie it up at five different times before surging ahead for a 20-18 lead with a 5-1 run including four kills.
However, Purdue responded with its own 5-1 run including back-to-back Jackson attack errors (her first of the match) to close out the set and take a 2-1 lead.
Purdue hit .364 in the set as its outsides continued to dominate. Nebraska hit .282 behind five kills from Beason.
After Krause played the third set, Landfair was back in the lineup for the fourth. The Huskers got off to a great start, jumping out to an 8-4 lead. They pushed the advantage to five a couple of times, including at 17-12. The Boilermakers recorded blocks on three straight rallies to trim the lead to two, but Landfair and Beason both stepped up with big kills to put the Huskers back in control.
Purdue saved a few set points down the stretch, but Beason closed it out with a back-row kill out of a timeout. Cook opted to give the senior captain more turns in the back row against the Boilermakers than she’s been playing, and the move paid dividends.
“We’ve been working on it, preparing for this match, because we knew it’d be a tight match, and we’re just trying to find some more kills,” Cook said. “What they were doing is they were trapping Andi with two blockers, letting our left sides go one-on-one, and those guys were struggling tonight. So there was an open lane down the middle, and we probably hit for a huge number on our back-row attack tonight. We worked hard on it this week because we knew we were going to need it tonight.”
Nebraska won despite hitting just .114 in the set. Beason led the way with another five kills. Purdue hit .147 and misfired five times from the service line.
Purdue served into the net again to open the fifth but followed it up with a 3-0 run to take the lead. Nebraska tied it up nine times before finally breaking through with a Jackson slide kill for a 13-12 lead.
Purdue turned the tables with a 3-1 run to earn a match point, triggering a Nebraska timeout. Cook subbed Beason in for Laney Choboy in the back row a rotation early to add her firepower and the move paid off as she immediately tied it up with a back-row kill that blasted off the Purdue libero’s face.
The Huskers scored a point off a net violation on the next rally then Reilly went back to Beason in the front row to close out the match.
“She got some big kills,” Cook said. “She was struggling early, struggling blocking, struggling serving, but she showed why she’s a first-team All-American. She made some huge plays for us there. That last kill was a great kill, and that’s what you expect from your first-teamers.”
Purdue did not commit an attack error in the fifth, hitting .481, but the Boilermakers misfired four times from the service line and Nebraska hit .458.
The Huskers will face a quick turnaround as Rutgers (5-11, 0-5) will visit the Devaney Center Saturday night. Kenzie Dyrstad, a Papillion-La Vista South graduate, is leading the Scarlet Knights in digs at 2.93 per set.
First serve is set for 7 p.m. and the match will be available on Big Ten Plus.
