John Cook notches 700th Nebraska Cornhuskers win despite late struggles

If the Nebraska Cornhuskers thought their recent dominant run was scaring opponents like new Big Ten rival UCLA, then they learned a valuable lesson on Friday night. In a match that first looked like it would be another blowout run on a night that celebrated John Cook's 25th year in Lincoln, the Huskers found themselves in a real fight in the third and fourth sets.

In the end, Cook notched his 700th career win with the Huskers. After Bergen Reilly and company looked dominant for most of the first three sets, they gritted it up and closed out the match after dropping some focus in the third set to open Big Ten play 1-0.

Thanks to a 25-22, 25-10, 23-25, 25-22 win the Nebraska Cornhuskers are now 11-1 on the season and after jumping into the No. 2 spot in the AVCA polls it still looks like it belongs, despite that very famous loss to SMU earlier in the season. And a bit of a slip against a scrappy Bruins squad.

Nebraska Cornhuskers continue dominant run

Since SUM loss, and since Cook called out his team as perhaps being a bit too timid and expecting the opponent to back down, they've been on a crazy roll.

Cook's squad has lost three sets in their last 8 matches and two of those three sets losses came on the same night against in-state rival Creighton. The Huskers have gone 4-0 against Top 15 teams and swept No. 14, No. 2 and No. 5 in the country.

At the same time, the Nebraksa Cornhuskers showed that keeping that level of focus going indefinitely is complicated. In the third set against the Bruins, UCLA made an 11-1 run to keep the match going and the two teams traded kills back and forth in the fourth set. Whenever NU looked like they were taking charge, UCLA had an answer until the match point where Nebraska smashed the ball into a Bruin block that went askew and ended the comeback attempt.