Bergen Reilly set the tone for No. 2 Nebraska from the first serve in Friday night’s home opener as the Huskers made short work of Texas A&M Corpus Christi to improve to 2-0.
The Cornhuskers swept the Islanders 25-9, 25-20, 25-15 at the Devaney Center to open play at the Ameritas Players Challenge. Bergen Reilly and stuffed the stat sheet, Lindsay Krause terminated at a high rate and the two transfers notched their first kills as Huskers.
“The crowd was really fired up tonight,” Coach John Cook said. “It was exciting to be here and you could feel the buzz in the arena. I thought Corpus Christi, after the first 15 points, played some really good volleyball … It just felt like they never give you points, you have to really earn them. So it was a really good test for us, and we did some nice things — serving and killing the ball, and I thought we passed pretty good tonight. So good effort.
“And the other thing I was most pleased about is I subbed out players and we changed the lineup in the third game, and we didn’t miss a beat. Sometimes when we do that, it backfires a little bit. So really, really pleased with all that.”
Nebraska hit out-hit the Islanders .427 to .181, finishing with the same number of service aces as attack errors (seven of each).
Reilly recorded her second straight double-double with 35 assists, a team-high 10 digs, five aces, four kills and three blocks.
“I think my team was doing a really good job of putting me in good positions out there, and we had a really great scouting report,” Reilly said. “So I knew exactly where to go on blocks, so that helped too. But I think just when one thing isn’t going right, you find another thing to go right, and I think that was kind of what was going through my head tonight.”
Lindsay Krause finished with 13 kills — six more than any other player — on .478 hitting, five digs, three blocks and one ace. Friday was her first official match at the Devaney Center (excluding the Red-White Scrimmage) since Oct. 14, 2023.
“It was so great,” Krause said. “I obviously missed playing here, and so getting to open up not at Bob was very different. I know we’re very grateful for getting to go play in Kentucky, but it was something that I definitely missed. So getting to be back in here, it’s just something unlike anywhere else, and we know that. So it was just super great to be back.”
Cook rolled with the same lineup of returning starters that he used in Tuesday’s opener and the middles again produced at an efficient clip as Rebekah Allick and Andi Jackson combined for 13 kills on .600 hitting.
Nebraska raced out to a 10-0 lead to open the match with Reilly at the service line. She served up three aces during that run while Krause and Allick got off to fast starts with three kills apiece.
“It’s amazing, especially to start off the very first game at Bob,” Krause said. “It kind of shows how fired up we all are for the season. We weren’t going to let anything drop and just keep that going. We could feel that energy, so it was great.”
After starting the match with 11 straight serves, Reilly closed out the first set with five straight as the Islanders continued to struggle in receive. Krause had six kills on nine swings and Allick added five on six as Nebraska hit .433.
Corpus Christi put up a much better fight in set two, but it wasn’t enough as Jackson picked up where Allick left off, terminating on five of her six swings. Reilly also called her own number a few times with three kills on four attacks.
“The setter’s got to do it all and we challenged her to be more aggressive attacking,” Cook said. “She did well at Kentucky and did well tonight. Teams just ignore her, so she’s got to make them pay when they don’t block her. If she can hold a block, it just opens up everything for other hitters.”
Cook changed his lineup for set three, inserting Leyla Blackwell in Allick’s place and Taylor Landfair’s in Harper Murray’s, and the transfers made an immediate impact. Blackwell terminated on both of her swings and added three blocks while Landfair notched five kills on 10 errorless swings.
“It was so cool,” Reilly said of the transfers. “We talked about it in the locker room, it was such a seamless transition having them both come in. That’s really special to be able to do on a team, because that can be hard sometimes putting two new people in, and we didn’t miss a beat. So I think that that was really awesome for them and shows a lot to them of our trust in them.”
Nebraska hit .517 in the third set to complete the sweep as Krause added four more kills.
After Kennedi Orr served for Andi Jackson throughout the Kentucky match, Cook opted to let the sophomore serve in the first and third sets, and the Huskers won the rally on seven of her nine serves including a 7-0 run in the third.
“She’s a great server,” Cook said. “With the way we’re subbing right now, she’s going to have to serve in long games. She had a great run tonight. She’s a great server in practice. She gets in the game, she gets a little tentative still, so but the other thing is you saw she played defense, she made a couple digs. They tried to dump on her, which they always do, and she got that one up; she got experience doing that with USA. She’s hitting that ball so high it’s a dangerous serve when she really gets a hold of it.”
TCU took down former conference foe Oklahoma 3-1 in the first match of the Ameritas Players Challenge. Melanie Parra, a third-team All-American in 2023, led the Horned Frogs with 20 kills on .429 hitting, nine digs and seven aces. Nebraska will face TCU on Saturday night.
“She’s the real deal,” Cook said. “It’s going to be a great match. She’s really good. She’s got a gnarly serve. She hits front row, back row really well. She moves it around. She’s very composed. I very impressed tonight. TCU is a good team. That was one of the reasons I wanted to play them and they wanted to come here. They’re a good team.”
First serve is set for 7:30 p.m. The match will be available to stream on Big Ten Plus.
