1 day Ago By AMIE JUST Lincoln Journal Star
Rarely is Nebraska an underdog at home during nonconference play. But on Wednesday, it happened. No.
5 Nebraska was up against No. 2 Stanford — an unbeaten team that had already knocked off four ranked teams so far this season. That includes a sweep of the reigning national champions.
How would Nebraska handle its toughest test of the season thus far? Some, like yours truly, expected a five-setter with drama, long rallies and momentum swings — just like last week’s match against Creighton. Nope. The Huskers brought out the brooms, rolling past the Cardinal in straight sets, 25-17, 25-22, 25-14.
My thoughts on Nebraska’s dominant win: Good things happen when you set the middle. And sophomore middle Andi Jackson is reaping the benefits of that once again. Jackson tied with senior outside Lindsay Krause to lead the match with nine kills.
Jackson’s nine came on 15 swings for a hitting percentage of .600 — tied for the third-highest mark of the season. She also led the Huskers in blocks with five to register a match-high 11 1⁄2 points.
For context: Her career-high points of 19 came against Creighton last week in a five-set match. She was a huge catalyst for Nebraska making its surge in the second set. When Nebraska was behind, she shared credit with sophomore outside Harper Murray on a block and then recorded back-to-back slide kills to get Nebraska back on top at 19-18.
Nebraska went on to win the set, 25-25. Once again, setter Bergen Reilly distributed a very balanced game. Murray had 29 swings.
Senior opposite Merritt Beason had 21 swings. Krause had 19 swings. Jackson had 15 swings.
And Reilly herself had six total attacks. It doesn’t matter who it is. Whenever a Husker player is sprinting into the crowd or toward the scorer’s table, the crowd eats it up.
That happened multiple times on Wednesday — with Murray diving into the scorer’s table and libero Lexi Rodriguez flying into the row of photographers. It never gets old watching the chase — even when it doesn’t result in a point. Nebraska had the match well in hand when Murray rotated back to the service line for the final time in the third set.
But she made sure Stanford wasn’t going to get any momentum going late in the match. Boom. An ace.
Thunderous applause. 22-10 Nebraska. Boom.
Another one. Even louder applause. 23-10 Nebraska.
In total, Murray had two aces for the match and served 12 times. No errors either. Stanford was the No.
2 team for a reason. Swept Texas last weekend. Beat Minnesota.
Beat Wisconsin. Swept Marquette. Came into Wednesday night undefeated.
Was collectively hitting a whopping .313 on the year. That’s a tough test.
No matter. Nebraska held Stanford to .100 — “a really good feat,” to quote Nebraska coach John Cook.
In total, Nebraska blocked Stanford nine total times. And Stanford made 22 total hitting errors on the night. Not a dump set.
Not a tip. An actual swing. A real one.
Audible slap and everything. To make it better, she terminated on it, too — inching Nebraska closer to Stanford’s lead in the second set to bring the set score to Stanford 12, Nebraska 11. When teams have to game plan for her too, it makes Nebraska that much harder to defend.
Reilly finished with four kills on six attempts. If you listen to Cook speak about volleyball, he preaches two things. Serve.
Pass. He’s right. Without those two things, a volleyball team has nothing.
Nebraska served incredibly tough on Wednesday, which resulted in Stanford getting rattled a bit and more dependent on their outside hitters rather than having a balanced attack. For a moment, Stanford could not be stopped. With Ella Rubin at the line, Stanford scored.
And scored. And scored some more. By the end of her run, Stanford had gone on an 8-0 run.
But Nebraska wasn’t fazed and clawed back to not only take the set lead, but won the set by three points. “It didn’t tank them,” Cook said. “They didn’t get frustrated.
They just stayed with it, point by point. Technical issues happen. Of course.
But it’s a really bad look when Stanford wants to challenge an early point and it can’t because the replay system is down. Thankfully, the system came back up before Nebraska challenged a point a few rallies later. But the point still stands.
We need the replay system to work — for the entire match. Get local news delivered to your inbox!.
