No. 11 Nebraska Volleyball’s Big Ten title hopes fell at the feet of No. 5 Wisconsin as the Badgers beat the Huskers 3-1 (14-25, 25-23, 26-24, 25-18) in Madison, Wisc..
Wisconsin (24-3) is now 16-3 in the Big Ten and claimed their third consecutive Big Ten Championship.
The Huskers (20-7, 14-4) started out determined and took the first set 25-14. But after dropping back-to-back two-point sets, they lost their footing against a really good Wisconsin team.
Here are my three takes from the match:
Passing and serving were key in first set
Nebraska cruised past Wisconsin in the first set. I mean windows and convertible top down, hair blowing around, listening to their favorite songs — cruised.
It feels like a while since the Huskers have dominated the Badgers in a set.
NU did that by passing great, having two errors and four aces.
Hames had 11 assists and Nebraska had 14 kills. The setter and her hitters were connecting well and a lot of that comes down to good passes to Hames.
The Huskers played their best set of volleyball this season and hit .462 against an outstanding Wisconsin defense, who finished with 62 digs.
Head Coach John Cook previously said his side-out percentage goal is around 60 percent. In the first set, Nebraska had a 92 percent side-out percentage.
Defensive specialist Keonilei Akana had three aces in the first set and five total.
If the Huskers can pass great, serve tough and play low-error volleyball, this team would be hard to beat. However, they struggle with consistency, clearly.
Outside hitters need more “firepower”
Same story, different match.
Nebraska has struggled to get three low-error hitters to perform in the same match. They have three players who are competing on the left and two players on the right.
Left-side hitter Madi Kubik is the most consistent of the three left-sides but can still be high-error depending on the match. Lexi Sun and Ally Batenhorst tried their hand (pun intended) but both hit zero.
Sun started and had seven kills, seven errors and hit zero. Batenhorst came in for Sun in set three to try and provide a spark but only had one swing. Sun was back in for set four.
Right-side hitter Whitney Lauenstein started over Lindsay Krause and “started off great”, Cook said on the Huskers Radio Network after the match.
“But I don’t know if she had any kills in the last two and a half (sets),” Cook said.
The stats confirmed that Lauenstein didn’t have a kill after getting one to help Nebraska go up 13-12 in the second set.
“We have got to have more firepower,” Cook said. “We had one player with double-digit kills.”
Wisconsin, a top-five team, had two players in Grace Loberg on the left and Jade Demps on the right that hit over .231 on the match. Freshman Julia Orzol had an off-night with three kills and hit -.158 but is typically much more consistent.
The Huskers are aiming to be where Wisconsin is with their wide range of consistently, low-error hitters.
Onto No. 6 Purdue
Nebraska lost the Big Ten title after leading or tying for first in the conference all season. Now, they have to move on to the next challenge.
The Huskers have a quick turnaround and play No. 6 Purdue in Indiana at 8 p.m. on Saturday night on BTN.
Cook said the Wisconsin match was a good experience for the Huskers.
“We went for it tonight and that is what is important,” he said.
With the title out of reach, the Huskers are competing against Purdue with hopes of potentially helping their RPI ranking for their NCAA tournament seed.
But mostly, Nebraska hasn’t played back-to-back matches in consecutive days since September.
“I’m not sure that match will impact where we finish for the NCAA tournament, but we have learned how to compete back to back,” Cook said. “We’re gonna have to do it next week in the NCAA Tournament.”
Creating momentum going into the tournament by knocking off the No. 6 ranked team could only help.
The Huskers need to learn from the Wisconsin match and move on quickly.
