Nebraska Volleyball: Young team developing well in Big Ten play

Nebraska volleyball is coming off an impressive weekend road trip and the casual fan wouldn’t know that this is a very young team in 2018.

Nebraska volleyball hit the road this weekend for their first true road trip of the 2018 season and that provided some questions for the program. How would this young team, one that has eight newcomers this season, handle going on the road in tough atmospheres?

Well, to answer that question, they fared quite nicely. Nebraska handled Northwestern with ease on Friday night, sweeping the Wildcats. Saturday was the true challenge, as Nebraska had a tall task in the Illinois Fighting Illini, the seventh ranked team in the country. Illinois had not lost a match all year, but the Huskers took care of business against them, winning in four sets.

The match against Illinois showed just how much this young team has developed throughout the last month. The first game of the year, which was against Florida on August 24th, was a sloppy effort from Nebraska and that’s where the youth of the team really showed.

Since then, however, Nebraska hasn’t lost a match and when they’re hot, they’re nearly impossible to beat. The highlight of the youngsters this weekend was Callie Schwarzenbach, who notched nine kills and an .818 hitting percentage. Not bad for a freshman!

Freshman Nicklin Hames continues to improve as the team’s setter, posting 42 assists and also recording two kills of her own against the Fighting Illini. Hames hit .400 against Illinois and seeing how much she has developed as the setter this year has been fun to watch. Filling All-American Kelly Hunter’s shoes isn’t an easy task, but Hames would make you think otherwise.

The Big Ten Conference is the toughest in all of college volleyball, but these youngsters are handling it well. The environment in Champagne, Illinois isn’t an easy one to play in, so it would have been understandable if these freshmen cracked under pressure. They did the exact opposite and dominated the competition.

While she’s not a freshman, Lexi Sun has been an excellent addition to this Husker squad. She missed the first few weeks of the season due to injury, but the casual fan would never know that.

Sun didn’t have a great day hitting on Saturday, but she recorded nine kills. The transfer from Texas fits in well with Nebraska and only adds to the list of reasons why this team could win it all again in December.

This was a fun, hard-fought match and I’m so, so, SO proud of Nebraska for winning this one. Not only did they win on the road in a tough environment, but they did so in four sets and handed Illinois their first loss of the year. The best news is that these two will play again in late October in the wonderful confines of the Bob Devaney Sports Center. Be sure to circle that one on the calendar.

Next up for Nebraska volleyball: A date with the Iowa Hawkeyes this Wednesday in Lincoln. Nebraska is now 13-1 on the year and 4-0 in Big Ten play while Iowa is 9-5 overall and 1-2 in conference play, but will face Northwestern on Sunday.

Lastly, in my previous article, I mentioned keeping an eye on how the Cornhuskers did at the service line. They shut me up by only recording nine total service errors over the weekend (four against Northwestern and five against Illinois). Keep it up Huskers!

This victory against Illinois was a huge one and it shows just how good this team is and how much the younger players have developed and grown in just a month. The biggest question heading into this year was how would these newcomers perform, but they’ve silenced anyone who might have had doubts. That shows how good of a coach John Cook is and how great of a job Mikaela Foecke and Kenzie Maloney have done as co-captains.

Nebraska fans have been treated to some great volleyball over the last month, but the competition is only going to get tougher as the season rolls along. Fortunately, the Nebraska volleyball team has given us no reason to worry whatsoever. Go Big Red!