Nebraska Volleyball advances to Sweet 16!

NCAA Women’s Volleyball Tournament Round 1 & 2 are in the books and the Huskers came out on top and head to Seattle to play in Round 3. Huskers Coach John Cook claims that this season’s schedule is the toughest schedule any Nebraska volleyball team has ever played. This seasons record going into the tournament shows just how tough the schedule was with the Huskers finishing the regular season at 20-9. You would need to go back to 1981 to find a season where the Husker volleyball team has had more losses. Part of what made it SO tough is that Nebraska has played 6 of the Top 10 seeded teams in this year’s tournament. The question is, will this tough schedule help Nebraska in the tournament against Washington?

This past Friday night, the Huskers met Long Island’s Hofstra Pride in a match that the Huskers had to battle hard to win. The Huskers swept Hofstra 27-25, 25-23, and 25-16. Hofstra led the Huskers in kills but it was the Husker blocking that made the difference in the game. Huskers ended the night with 19.5 blocks, which was just one-half of a block shy of an NCAA record for a tournament match involving a sweep.

Devaney Center (Photo Credit Elaine Menzel)

Even though the Huskers were out hit by Hofstra, the huskers ended the night with a hitting percentage of .170 while Hofstra’s was .076. Kadie Rolfzen had 13 kills for the night but no other Husker hit double-digits. This win increased Nebraska’s opening tournament game winning streak to 31 consecutive years. This was also the 60^th tournament sweep for the Huskers out of 119 attempts.

On Saturday night the Huskers faced 20^th ranked Utah Utes. Utah ran a 6-2 offense utilizing three attackers and blockers in the front row for the entire match. This match went five sets with the Huskers winning the first two, 25-23 and 25-22. Going into half time, the Utes led the Huskers statistically, but it was the Utes serving errors that made the difference. Utah came out in the second half with a vengeance and the Huskers lost sets three and four, 23-25 and 17-25. Set four was dominated by Utah and the closest the Huskers could get within was only 6 points.

The fifth set was the determining factor as the Huskers rallied to capture the first 4 points and then led the entire rest of the way. Senior setter Mary Pollmiller ended the match with a kill giving the Huskers the set and match by a score of 15-11. Pollmiller’s kill was the last point ever to be scored by her in front of the Devaney Center crowd.