Nebraska volleyball’s race for the roses continues after the top-seeded Huskers swept the second-seeded Wisconsin Badgers in the final match of the season at the Bob Devaney Sports Center.
Nebraska beat Wisconsin 26-24, 25-17, 25-21 in front of a raucous crowd of 8,743 on Sunday to punch its ticket to Louisville for the Final Four.
“I think this is one of the hardest regional finals we have ever had because of Wisconsin,” Coach John Cook said. “They are a phenomenal team, they’ve got great players, they are very well coached. We had to play our very best match of the year to win this match today. So much respect for the Badgers, and I asked our team, I told them that we were going to have to really max it out today, and they responded and did a great job. Even though a few times it wasn’t going really well, they just stayed with it and found ways to win.
“The other thing is, I asked our crowd to will us, and I’m not sure I have heard the Devaney this loud for this long, every point, so thanks to our crowd. They were unbelievable today.”
In three sweeps this season, Nebraska held Wisconsin — eighth in the country in hitting percentage heading into Sunday — to .130 hitting.
“We ran into just an unbelievable defensive team,” Wisconsin coach Kelly Sheffield said. “I thought both teams were just making some big plays. We probably made a few more errors than what they did, but some of the defensive plays they were making, no one in the country is making in the backcourt. That’s nothing new to anybody in this room. Those of you guys that are from here have been seeing that all year long. We took some really, really big-time swings and they came up with some big-time digs.”
Harper Murray earned Lincoln Regional Most Outstanding Player honors after averaging 4.57 kills, 4.0 digs and 1.14 blocks per set while hitting .263 and serving four aces against Dayton and Wisconsin.
Lexi Rodriguez, Bergen Reilly and Andi Jackson joined Murray on the All-Regional Team, alongside Wisconsin’s Sarah Franklin, Dayton’s Lexie Almodovar and Texas A&M’s Logan Lednicky.
Nebraska hit .210 as three Huskers recorded double-digit kills. After a quiet match against Dayton on Friday and a slow start on Sunday, Taylor Landfair took over to post a match-high 13 kills on .267 hitting, her first double-digit outing since Nov. 14.
“Yesterday in practice, I tried to instill in her mind that she was going to have to go high and hard, and she did that today,” Cook said. “She got some big kills for us on some tough sets, so really happy for her because she hasn’t been to a final four yet. She’s done a lot, so I’m sure this is a big moment for her.”
Murray added 10 kills, 12 digs and four blocks. Jackson posted 10 kills on .474 hitting and five blocks. Bergen Reilly finished with 29 assists, eight digs and four blocks. Rebekah Allick chipped in four kills on nine swings and six blocks.
The Huskers held Wisconsin to .126 hitting, out-blocking the top blocking team in the country, 12 to nine, and winning the digs battle by 10. Rodriguez led the way with a match-high 17 digs and is eight shy of Justine Wong-Orantes’ career digs record at Nebraska.
“The effort on both sides was incredible,” Cook said. “Both teams were laying out, making unreal plays. I blow the whistle in practice when I think the ball is down. I would have blown the whistle several times today thinking the ball was down. Next thing you know, it’s up. When they have hitters like that, you have to dig balls, because you’re not going to block those guys all the time. Our pursuit — Harper went into the crowd a couple times … Our team had tremendous effort on defense today.”
The first frame set a high bar for the match. Wisconsin delivered the first significant punch, using a pair of aces from Charlie Fuerbringer to open an 11-7 lead. She missed her third serve to stop the Husker bleeding, however, and Nebraska surged ahead with a 4-0 run of its own including a go-ahead triple-block on Franklin.
The Badgers tied it up at 16-all before Landfair took over, notching three straight kills during a 5-0 run to give the Huskers the largest lead of the set. The Badgers didn’t go away, chipping away at the deficit until they managed to tie it at 24-all with three straight set-point saves. However, a service error put Nebraska back in front and Landfair finished it off with her sixth kill of the set.
Nebraska out-hit Wisconsin .300 to .263 as Murray added four kills on 10 swings to Landfair’s six.
“They are a great serving team,” Cook said. “We are a great passing team. You saw how they started off, they broke us down right away. Then we settled down and passed them really well. I thought our serving started stressing them. They are also a very good passing team, but we started breaking them down as the match went on. But it’s heavyweights. This is a slugfest, long rallies. It’s hard to put the ball away. You’ve got this big block you’re dealing with all the time. It’s a heavyweight fight. It was like [Muhammad] Ali vs. [Joe] Frazier round three.”
Jackson picked up where Landfair left off in the second set, asserting herself early with three kills (two on overpasses) and a block in a five-point span during a 7-0 Husker run. Nebraska continued to pour it on from there, stretching the lead to 10 at 14-4 while forcing Sheffield to burn through both of his timeouts.
“It’s kind of just a flow state,” Rodriguez said. “Everything was kind of going our way. After that first set was back and forth, a close two-point game that we had to battle out, I knew going into the second set that we were going to come out with a lot more urgency, which is exactly what we did. We were just on a roll; it was awesome.”
The Badgers eventually settled in and made Nebraska work a bit harder for it, cutting the lead to five a few times, but the Huskers closed on a 3-0 run to take a 2-0 match lead at the intermission.
Nebraska hit .250 and held Wisconsin to .114 in a set that saw 42 combined digs, including eight from Rodriguez. Jackson recorded five kills on six swings while Landfair added four more kills to her tally.
The big Wisconsin block took over early in the third set, allowing the Badgers to build a 15-11 lead heading into the media timeout. When play resumed, Nebraska fired back, ripping off an 8-1 run featuring three kills and a solo block from Murray.
Wisconsin trimmed the lead to one at 21-20 but misfired on the next serve and the Huskers recorded blocks on three of the next four rallies to complete the sweep.
The Huskers totaled eight blocks in the final set. Murray and Allick had three assists and one solo block each while Murray added a team-high four kills to put the finishing touches on her MOP résumé.
After the match, the Huskers ran around the Devaney Center to slap hands and celebrate with the fans for the final time in 2024 — and for the final time ever for the seniors.
“It was definitely emotional,” Rodriguez said. “It definitely doesn’t feel real that that was my last game in Devaney. There’s no better way to go out. It was giving a little bit of appreciation for the Devaney Center and for all the fans for helping us get to this point and helping us get to the next stage. That’s one of my favorite parts of the whole year, is getting to go around and celebrate with all of them.”
The win earns Nebraska a return trip to Louisville where the Huskers beat Kentucky in the AVCA First Serve Showcase to open the season and then beat the Louisville Cardinals on Sept. 22.
“One of our themes for this year is race for the roses; it’s on our poster, it’s on our shirts, and our goal was to get back to Louisville for the third time. We’ve already been there twice.”
Consider that mission accomplished, which leaves one goal left unchecked on the Huskers’ list: winning a national championship.
Nebraska will get a chance to avenge one of its two losses this season in the final four as No. 1 seed Penn State outlasted No. 2 Creighton in five sets to secure the final ticket to Louisville. Overall No. 1 seed Pitt will face another No. 1 seed in Louisville in an All-ACC semifinal at 5:30 p.m. CT on Thursday. The Huskers and Nittany Lions will follow in the late match.
