Nebraska 3 – Iowa 0
25-15, 25-21, 25-18
Tonights match turned out to be a special night for Husker volleyball for multiple reasons. The Huskers secured, at least, a share of the B1G title this season and
it was the 350th sellout at the Bob Devaney Center.
On top of all of that, the Huskers rolled onto be 41-0 against the Iowa Hawkeyes, all time which is super impressive. It is not surprising though as the Iowa program has never really been all that strong.
Iowa had a lineup change tonight playing Makena Rumple in place of Hannah Whittingstall which was probably a blow to their lineup as Whittingstall is a top player for them. Good for the Huskers though as this is one less person to contain.
Through the first 7 points of the match, Harper Murray and Andi Jackson each had an ace as the Huskers looked very strong from the service line tonight. Iowa was forced to take a timeout as Nebraska took a 9-3 lead as they were hitting .714% already.
The timeout proved to be no help, at first, though because the Huskers extended their lead to 12-4. They did find a little life, for a moment, coming within 6, but the Huskers shut this down quickly as Virginia Adriano recorded the teams 3rd ace of the night.
The Huskers were making Iowa look like a middle school volleyball team for the1st half of the set before the Hawkeyes started to wake up for the match and play. We saw Maisie Boesiger join the match in the 1st, which is something that doesn’t get to happen that often.
The Huskers would ultimately win the 1st set by 10 points after just a quick opening set. Taylor Landfair led the team in both kills and hitting percentage, for players that had more than 3 kills, as she had 5 kills and hit .556%.
The Huskers had an all around good hitting set as they hit .464% as a team and held the Hawkeyes to .152%.
The Hawkeyes must’ve made a good amount of adjustments during the set break because they played the Huskers much tighter in the 2nd set. They showed fight and played to the end of every point, but it wasn’t good enough against a powerhouse Husker team.
Virginia Adriano recorded her 2 ace of the math early in the set with her powerful and fast serve that is hard to handle. Iowa responded to all the Husker aces with 2 of their and this helped energize the team to stay in it and just that they did.
The Hawkeyes stayed within a few points of the Huskers the entire set and eventually tied the match at 19-19 just before a commercial timeout. Just before this, Taylor Landfair got the teams 5th ace, and her 1st, of the night.
The Huskers pulled through and won the 2nd set even with Iowa bringing everything they had at us. Nebraska didn’t even play that much worse, or really at all, in the 2nd set as they even hit at a higher clip at .500%. Iowa only hit a little better at .162%.
Harper Murray led the team in kills after the 2nd with 8, but it was Andi Jackson who was really impressive as she was hitting .750%, going 7 for 8 so far in the match.
Early in the 3rd set, Virginia Adriano got her 3rd ace of the night, but followed it up with a service error which is a pretty common thing to happen at times.
We saw a challenge war take place early in the set as well. Harper Murray got blocked Claire Ammeraal for the 3rd time in a row, but Laney Choboy kept the ball up with her foot and would go on to win the point.
After the play was over, Iowa challenge that the ball was down on Choboy’s dig by foot. Call reversed. Iowa win the point. Dani Busboom-Kelly would quickly challenge right after this that the Hawkeyes were in the net. Call reversed, again. Point Nebraska. All this just for one point. What a sequence.
The two teams kept going in between an Iowa lead and a tie before the Hawkeyes made a couple mistakes that led to a 15-13 Nebraska lead to put the match into the 15-point TV timeout.
Iowa took a timeout, just 2 points after the TV timeout, because of multiple hitting errors that opened the gap just a little for the Huskers to have a chance to start to run away with the rest of the set.
And run away they did, extending their lead to 22-17 and making Iowa take their final timeout of the match. Iowa made a dinky challenge to, probably, to get a timeout out of it and extra rest before set point came. Andi Jackson killed the final ball, on an overpass, of the match to give the B1G title to the Huskers for the 3rd straight season.
Nebraska’s big 3 in Harper Murray, Andi Jackson, and Virginia Adriano all had big nights tonight with Murray and Jackson recording double digit kills with 11 and 10, respectively, and Adriano with 9 kills.
Jackson had the highest hitting percentage for the Huskers tonight hitting .571% with only 2 errors. Taylor Landfair also had a good night with 7 kills, hitting .438% and recording a block and an ace.
Rebekah Allick and Bergen Reilly led the way on defense tonight with 6 and 4 blocks, respectively. Jackson and Adriano followed them up with 3 each of their own.
Because of the Huskers low hitting 3rd set, they hit .384% on the night even though they were above .450% in the first two sets. They kept Iowa at a very low clip tonight, .073%, even though they showed strong signs of a fight.
The Huskers will now fly to Bloomington, Indiana to play a very good Indiana team on Saturday night for the Hoosiers senior night match. This match will begin at 5:00pm CST and will be streamed on B1G+. The Husker football team will kick off against Penn State an hour later on NBC.
