This story has been told multiple times over the last few years with Nebraska volleyball. Harper Murray said that she would win three more titles the rest of her time with the Huskers two seasons ago. The reverse sweep at the hands of last year’s Penn State team, on the backs of head coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley beating cancer, felt like sports destiny.
Sports destiny seemed to be on their side for the last 16 weeks. An undefeated, storybook season, with the final games of the season just three short hours away in Kansas City, Missouri, seemed almost too perfect to draw up. Then it was all whisked away in a form far too familiar on the biggest stage.
In the regional final, the third-seeded and ninth-overall team, Texas A&M, stormed into Lincoln and fought through one of the greatest regular-season teams of all time. The Aggies did something that no team, not even the Kentucky Wildcats in the fourth game of the season, could do. Kentucky held a two-set lead on Nebraska and couldn’t get the job done in Nashville. But in one of the toughest environments in college sports, not just college volleyball, Texas A&M ran through the proverbial buzzsaw with its own jackhammer.
What had caused the Huskers’ trouble all year long came back to bite them in the worst way: serve receive. Nine aces were recorded by the Aggies today, with eight of those aces coming before intermission. Junior libero Laney Choboy was responsible for five of the first eight aces. After the serve receive seemingly was cleaned up after giving up nine aces to Maryland on Sept. 27, the issue came back to rear its ugly head. Between Sunday’s game and the Maryland match, Nebraska had not given up more than five aces (twice, Oregon and UCLA) in one contest.
Sunday’s match was a grueling dogfight all the way around, something unlike Nebraska had seldom seen all season long. See to the 37-35 set four score, which felt like a repeat of Oregon’s 41-39 set two win over Minnesota in the 2018 tournament. The fight never ran out. Until it was too late.
No matter where the 2025 Huskers finished in the tournament, the squad would live forever in the history books. A perfect regular season with a coach at her alma mater with a legend riding off into the sunset? The storylines wrote themselves.
Written with emotion, Nebraska experienced what they thought they wouldn’t this year. Since summer workouts, whether it was spoken into existence or not, the goal really was championship or bust. Finishing first in a grueling Big Ten wouldn’t suffice. Neither would a regional title. Nor would an appearance in the title game. Only would hoisting the big prize on December 21, 2025, inside the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri, be enough.
The difference between 2023’s dominant team and 2025’s was the heat check that came in the regular season. The Huskers’ loss to rival Wisconsin, a three-set drubbing on Black Friday, allowed for an opportunity to reset themselves before postseason play began just a week later. That opportunity was not afforded to this version of Nebraska because they were far too dominant all season long.
The Huskers assembled one of the largest rosters in recent memory, fueled by an NIL siphon into a program that has risen to stardom not just on a national, but on a worldwide scale. With 17 players on the roster, the talent rivaled an all-star caliber squad that a professional team could put together. Depth bit them right in the foot.
With freshman setter Campbell Flynn breaking her finger earlier in the week, and senior opposite hitter Allie Sczech suffering a freak accident during warmups, the roster was already smaller. With three redshirts on the bench, that meant only 12 active bodies. Nebraska head coach Dani Busboom Kelly attributes the thin bench, but also sickness floating around the locker room, as part of the problem at hand.
No depth problem will be able to sideline the performance on the court.
Freshman middle blocker Manaia Ogbechie was thrust into the limelight with junior counterpart Andi Jackson struggling to find any kind of momentum. With a few more healthy bodies, Busboom Kelly might have had a chance to sub in Flynn or Sczech for an under-the-weather Reilly or an at-times struggling freshman opposite Virginia Adriano.
“I think she’s really mature for her age and as a competitor,” senior middle blocker Rebekah Allick said postgame on Ogbechie. “We told her just to hit everything, and she did that.”
The celebration that Nebraska has had so close in their grasp has availed them times aplenty. Over the last three seasons, the Huskers are 99-6 but with just one appearance on the sport’s biggest stage. Texas A&M will now get to be front and center for the first time ever.
A team of dreams, overlooked by many in their own conference, with rival Texas and Kentucky running away with their regionals, slayed the giant. David took down Goliath.
“There are no words to describe this feeling,” senior outside hitter Logan Lednicky said postgame. “Why not us?”
The team that has yelled “Why not us?” from the mountaintop, a program that has built itself from the ground up since head coach Jamie Morrison’s arrival, can now scream that same phrase when they play the Pittsburgh Panthers on Thursday in the same gym Nebraska wanted to get to.
“We have the most wins that this program has ever had,” Morrison said postgame after achieving his 27th win of the year. “That’s not an accident.”
Nor is it an accident that they will play for the national title. It wasn’t going to be an accident that the Huskers could play for a national title either.
“I wanted to be somewhere that could be developed into one of the best programs in the country,” senior middle blocker Ifenna Coz-Okpalla said postgame. “To be sitting here after beating Nebraska, it’s insane.”
A Husker team that was hyped all year long has fallen short of its goals. A national champion banner is still waiting to be hoisted inside the Bob Devaney Sports Center after their most recent in 2017. So many close calls. So many heartbreaks. The book is far from being finished.
Look to the alumni who continue to be a part of the program even though their eligibility is gone. Merritt Beason and Leyla Blackwell, two graduates from the 2024 team, were in attendance on Sunday. Lexi Rodriguez, arguably one of the greatest liberos in college volleyball, continues to have relationships with the players.
“I’ve always looked up to Lexi Rodriguez,” Allick said postgame. “She maybe didn’t always have something to say, but she always made the play, but maybe it was the random hand hold or the hug. It was very intentional.”
With a senior class, specifically spotlighted by four-year letterwinners Allick and senior defensive specialist Maisie Boesiger, that has poured so much into the program throughout their time, don’t expect that continuity to end.
“[Allick] has put her heart and soul into this program, and you can tell by her face how much she cares,” Murray said postgame, speaking on behalf of her distraught teammate. “I don’t even care if we win or lose. She’s going to take away the memories and the relationships we’ve made, winning and losing.”
The loss hurts. Undoubtedly. The book on a video game-level team has written its final chapter on the 2025 season. It went out with a bang, a five-set thriller, but on the wrong side. Perhaps the new version of the John Cook Arena will bear more fruit when it comes online next year.
But for now, the dreams and destiny of hoisting the big prize will have to wait another year.
“We’re excited to be back next year,” Murray said postgame.
Danny Berg is a volleyball beat writer for the Daily Nebraskan. Follow him on X
sports@dailynebraskan.com
