The Missouri and Nebraska volleyball team are getting a do-over of the match at Wrigley Field that had to be suspended because of a slick court.
The top-ranked Cornhuskers and the Tigers will play Wednesday, Sept. 23, at Nebraska. Both teams agreed the match, which was suspended with Nebraska leading the first game 11-7, will start over.
Nebraska season ticket holders will automatically get tickets for the match, and no additional tickets will be sold. The match will be broadcast on the Big Ten Network.
More than 43,000 people, most of them Nebraska fans, had turned out on Sept. 6 for the historic Big Ten/SEC Volleyball Challenge, the first volleyball games to be played at Wrigley Field. The first match, between Kentucky and Penn State, was completed,
but condensation on the court got worse as the night wore on, creating a safety hazard for players.
The court was mopped between the matches, to little effect. The first delay in the Nebraska-Mizzou match came after three points were played. After workers spent several minutes using mops on the court, players from both teams got on their hands and knees with towels to try to dry the playing surface.
The match resumed after about 20 minutes only to be paused again after another 15 points were played. Nebraska coach Dani Busboom Kelly and Missouri coach Dawn Sullivan huddled with officials, but Busboom Kelly said afterward it was obvious the match would have to be postponed.
"You don't want to see any injury and put any athlete at a risk for injury. So I think we just kept looking at each other every time somebody would slip and it's like, `This probably is not going to work,'" Busboom Kelly said. "... When people were falling and when they started feeling unsafe jumping, I think that's when it got to the point of they can deal with little slips and falls when they were diving, but when they were jumping, that's when it gets scary."
Busboom Kelly said after the match was postponed that scheduling issues made it impossible to make it up at Wrigley Field, but both teams hoped they could play later in the season.
"We'll see if we can reschedule with Mizzou somewhere down the season, but we've got to make that work for both of our schedules," Busboom Kelly said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Postponed volleyball match at Wrigley Field will be played at Nebraska
