The opening weekend in Lincoln for the 2025 NCAA volleyball tournament featured two completely different storylines, but showcased how much of a storybook season that Nebraska volleyball has been on.
After drubbing Long Island in the opening match, the Huskers had to scrap and claw their way to a straight-set sweep over unseeded Kansas State. Nebraska will take on Kansas in a rematch of their spring match in April.
Over 8,600 people watched the Huskers win set one 25-17, set two 25-21 and set three 25-16.
Here are a few quick takeaways from Saturday’s match:
Changing of the errors
Friday night’s game against LIU featured a boatload of service errors, but Saturday’s story was about the attack errors.
Part of the problem in Nebraska’s offense was how good Kansas State’s block was, recording their fourth straight game with eight or more stuffs. The Wildcats posted eight blocks in the game and accounted for nearly half of the Husker attack errors. The other ten attack errors, to get to the final total of 18, were off of some risky shots and cross-court attacks that went haywire. The 18 attack errors for Nebraska were their most since posting 26 against Creighton in a five-set thriller in September, and were their most for a three-set match this year.
“Their block was doing a really good job of getting touches that we kept trying to bounce,” head coach Dani Busboom Kelly said postgame. “They were disrupting our offense, which usually is a bit crisper.”
In what found itself being crisp tonight, the Huskers tied their next-highest total in aces with seven tonight, and four of them came from their defensive specialists. Junior setter Bergen Reilly and freshmen outside hitters Teraya Sigler and Virginia Adriano also threw up an ace on the board. It marked the 11th time in 32 games that Nebraska has achieved five or more aces.
The offense had a hard time clicking throughout the night, but found itself playing its best volleyball at the end of the match. If there is ever a time to get better, it is at the end of the game. The hit percentage was on a roller-coaster through the game, but peaked near .400% in the third set. The adjustment coming out of the locker room was paramount and the Huskers did it.
“At some point [opponents] are going to switch it up on us,” junior outside hitter Harper Murray said postgame. “I think to beat us, you’re going to have to find different ways to score.”
Two woman wrecking crew
When Nebraska’s offense struggled to score, the defense picked it up.
Junior libero Laney Choboy earned the starting assignment for the second game of the postseason. In a competitive game like this, the defense would have to show up. Choboy’s counterpart, whom she has competed with all season, ended up sharing some of the glory with her.
Sophomore defensive specialist Olivia Mauch posted 13 digs in the win, posting her third-highest total of the year behind two outputs of 14 and a 16-dig performance against Creighton. She also contributed two of the seven aces on the night, just the fifth time this year she’s recorded multiple aces in a match. She was a key part in some big-time defensive plays to keep up some critical points.
Choboy got better as the night went along, getting 12 digs and five assists. She also got two aces tonight, her second multi-ace game of the year, as the other came against Illinois in early November. The critical digs, though, came up at massive turning points of the game, continuing her spectacular junior season as a first-touch receiver.
“I think when it comes down to defense, it comes down to [Mauch and Choboy],” Reilly said postgame. “They really kept us in that game.”
The defense as a whole had a spectacular night in what resembled “old-school Nebraska volleyball,” as Busboom-Kelly put it. Sigler helped contribute nine digs, Murray had six, and Reilly had five. It was truly an all-around effort, with five blocks to boot, to help the Huskers pull out a huge win.
“Our defense hung in there, we were ready for long rallies,” Busboom-Kelly said.
Home crowd advantage
Getting to host playoff games is not a privilege that every program is able to have. Getting to host playoff games for the second weekend in all three years of being a part of your volleyball team is something special.
“I don’t think people understand how much of an advantage [hosting at home] is and how cool it is too,” Murray said. “We say all the time, it’s really hard to beat us here.”
The crowd came alive for a play you would see out of a movie, where Mauch had to pancake an attack, but her pass went offline. Reilly got a hand on it and the ball seemed destined for the stands until Sigler swatted the ball across the net and back into play. The roof nearly blew off the building.
“That was the loudest I’ve heard Devaney, maybe all season,” Reilly said.
Continued sellouts and strong home-court advantage, even with a large contingency of purple-clad fans in the crowd making the three-hour trip north, have helped propel Nebraska far in the past. To this point, they have experienced a similar story. An added advantage comes in the way of the Final Four being hosted at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City. While only a maximum of two more home games remain, they should get to enjoy lots of the Nebraska faithful cheering them on.
What’s next
Nebraska will get the fourth-seeded team in their regional next Thursday, Dec. 11, or Friday, Dec. 12, in Kansas. The Jayhawks finished second in the Big 12 this season behind Arizona State and will come into the game 24-10. Kansas swept through High Point 3-0 in their first game and then defeated fifth-seeded Miami in four sets on Friday.
The winner of the Nebraska/Kansas game will face either Texas A&M or Louisville in the regional final. Both teams swept through their first round game, but the Cardinals had some added trouble against pesky Marquette, who took them the distance in a five-set thriller. The Aggies had to deal with a stingy TCU team that hung around through all four sets in their contest. The regional final will be either Saturday, Dec. 13, or Sunday, Dec. 14.
Danny Berg is a volleyball beat writer at The Daily Nebraskan. Follow him on X and Instagram.
sports@dailynebraskan.com
