After three straight weeks of Tuesday matches disrupting their normal routine, the No. 5 Huskers have hit the practice court hard this week to “fine-tune” some things in the words of Coach John Cook.
The Huskers (8-1) practiced back-to-back days ahead of Wednesday’s home match against No. 2 Stanford and will get another intense block of training in before heading to No. 4 Louisville for a Sunday meeting.
“I think it’s been great,” Lindsay Krause said. “I think a lot of us were really itching to get back in the gym and kind of have a full-on practice where we’re able to really work on things, put things at the center of our brains and have goals. I think it’s really difficult the first few weeks. When it’s kind of just game after game, you don’t really have a lot of time to actually work on stuff; it’s kind of just preparing for the next match.
“So I think we’ve used these last couple days, and then even after Sanford, we’ll have even a few more days in a row to get to have full-on practices, and we’ve talked a lot about how big of a deal that is that we get to have this time to prepare. And so I think we’ve done a great job coming in these last couple days, and we’re really grateful to be back in the gym training hard.”
The training block comes at a good time as the Huskers prepare for what could be their most difficult week of matches all season as they host the second-ranked Cardinal before visiting the fourth-ranked Cardinals to close out nonconference play. Bergen Reilly called it a “Final Four week.”
“We’re ranked fifth, and two teams are ahead of us,” Cook said. “So this is a top-four week. But this will be a great test tomorrow, and then Sunday and going into the Big Ten Conference. We’re going to learn some more this week of how we need to play and how to compete with these guys. You can learn a lot in practice, but you learn a lot playing in these matches.”
This is the final season of a four-year series between the Huskers and Cardinal, though Cook said he’d like to continue playing Stanford in the future if things work out for both sides moving forward. Last year, Nebraska beat the Cardinal 3-1 in Palo Alto, snapping a five-match losing streak against Stanford.
“That was a defining moment for our season last year, to go to Stanford and win, and I’m sure they have not forgotten that,” Cook said. “We’re probably going to get a great shot from them. But that was a defining moment last year for our team to go out there and get a win because I’m not sure we really knew how good we could be, and those are the matches you need to go through. If you win them, man, you get a lot of confidence. If you lose them, you’re going to learn a lot. So these are great matches to play, especially going into the Big Ten.”
Stanford is 7-0 with wins over Minnesota, Wisconsin, Marquette and Texas, all teams ranked at the time. The Cardinal swept then-No. 6 Texas at Maples Pavilion on Sunday and feature a high-powered offense that ranks fourth nationally in hitting percentage (.313), fifth in kills per set (14.58) and fifth in assists per set (13.58).
“Stanford runs a really great offense and they have a bunch of really great hitters, so I think something we talk about as we start to play some really good teams as far as scouting goes is we’re not going to block every single ball, we’re not going to dig every single ball,” Krause said. “I think that’s something that sometimes at Nebraska, we really pride ourselves on our defense. We kind of sometimes get a little bit caught up in the plays that we necessarily don’t make, whereas I think our coaching staff and us as a team, we do a great job kind of understanding that as good as our defense can be, there’s still a great volleyball team on the other side of the net, and they’re still going to get kills, they’re still going to do things that great volleyball teams do.
“So I think it’s working past that, and understanding that Stanford is just a really great team and they run a really great offense and all that jazz, and just being able to move on to the next point in situations like that.”
Junior outside hitter Elia Rubin won’t be easy to slow down as she leads the Cardinal with 4.23 kills per set on .304 hitting. Redshirt freshman Ipar Kurt has stepped in at the other outside hitter spot to average 3.15 kills per set on .261 hitting. Sophomore opposite hitter Jordyn Harvey is averaging 3.73 kills on .263 hitting and is third nationally at 0.77 aces per set (which is more than the Huskers have allowed to entire teams so far this season — 0.71 per set).
The focal point of their offense, however, is All-America senior setter Kami Miner. She’s averaging 10.65 assists and 3.17 digs this season, and Reilly, the Big Ten Setter of the Week, described her as a great athlete who can do it all at the position.
“They’ve got good hitters,” Cook said. “They do everything really well. She fires the ball around. She’s very offensive, so that’s what you have to do against the All-American setters … She’s a great athlete. She’ll be fun to watch because she does everything really well. She probably could hit for them if they wanted her to … They run a pretty fast offense, and so she’ll be flying around.”
Regardless of Wednesday’s result, the Huskers will have to move on quickly because the path doesn’t get any easier with the Cardinals awaiting them on Sunday.
“I think just regardless of outcome, we’re going to learn a lot about ourselves, whether it’s actual tangible things on the court or us as a team what we need to work on,” Reilly said. “And I think that win or lose, those are things that we can take into the next 20 or however many games we have this season. So getting those tough challenges early on has been good for us. Even SMU, we talked about that after that game. We talked as a team, and we wanted to use that as a turning point. And these two games could be turning points for us, too, if we win, obviously great turning point just going forward. And if we don’t, there’s a lot of things we’ll be able to take away.”
First serve on Wednesday is set for 7 p.m. CT on Big Ten Network with Larry Punteney and Emily Ehman on the call.
