Nebraska 4– Iowa State 0
25-17, 25-16, 25-16, 26-24
Nebraska volleyball traveled to Bergen Reilly’s hometown of Sioux Falls, South Dakota for their 1st of 3 matches in the spring season. Reilly got the loudest applause as she was introduced to start the match today to start her, along with Harper Murray, Andi Jackson, and Laney Choboy’s, senior season. The Huskers met the Iowa State Cyclones at the Sanford Pentagon today for the match.
The Cyclones went 23-8 in the 2025 season and 12-6 in the Big 12 Conference.
Their ranked wins included Utah, Baylor, Arizona State, and TCU last season. They made it to the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament before getting swept by Minnesota in the 2nd round.
Since today was only a spring match, coaches were not allowed to challenge any calls meaning whatever the head ref calls is the final decision no matter what. They also had no instant replay to look at these said challenges that teams probably wanted to make at times. The coaches also agreed to play 4 sets no matter what today.
Some notes going into today is that John Cook confirmed during the broadcast that Teraya Sigler was nursing an injury last season and this is mostly why she only played back row last year. She did a good job at masking that pain because she had a great freshman year for only being a back row player as an outside.
As a lot of people know, the Bob Devaney Center is getting major renovations done this spring and summer to expand the arena seating from fitting 8,500 people to now fitting 10,000 people. This means they don’t have their home court to practice on or their locker room. They have been practicing in the mornings at Kinetic Sports Complex, on West O, which is home to the club team, VCNebraska.
Since this is only a spring game, I don’t think a whole match recap is needed, but just recapping how the newcomers looked then how girls stepping into new roles looked as well.
Manaia Ogbechie and Kenna Cogill started the match as the middle blockers for the Huskers and both really impressed. We know that these two, along with Keoni Williams, will be competing for the #2 spot this offseason. Cogill is a redshirt freshman this year and she looked very strong on the block and her slide today. She might have a slight edge over Ogbechie for the #2 spot going into the summer.
Harper Murray looked strong, per usual, but Skyler Pierce had her moment as she was showing how hard she has been working these past few seasons when she redshirted and last year when she saw limited time as Taylor Landfair had that spot.
Teraya Sigler and Gabby DiVita won’t make that OH #2 spot decision easy though as both of them had a very good match each. Dani Busboom Kelly said Sigler is the most improved player on the roster since the end of season in December. DiVita didn’t look like a freshman at all today. She has the mind of a vet and plays like it too. She comes from the club team Legacy in Michigan. This is the same one Harper, Campbell Flynn, and former Penn State player, Jess Mruzik.
Virginia Adriano looked even better than last year, and is even sporting a New Jersey number. She has taken Allie Sczech’s old number of #3 for her next few seasons at Nebraska. Ryan Hunter and Jayden Robinson are the other Huskers looking to take her spot, but Adriano may have her spot wrapped up. There’s still a lot of time left before August though so we can’t assume anything yet. Robinson was playing very timid today while Hunter made some small mistakes in the sets she played.
The setting and littles of the Husker squad are pretty much already decided to be honest. Laney Choboy will most likely be wearing the libero jersey for a lot of the time next season with Olivia Mauch rotating in as the DS. Keri Leimbach will probably take on the serving specialist role like Kennedi Orr did a few seasons ago.
Bergen Reilly is the reigning 3-Time B1G Setter of the Year and is the AVCA Setter of the Year so it would be pretty stupid to not have her starting. DBK could try out a 6-2 this season at some point, but this might be pretty unlikely.
There was a lot of good in today’s match with seeing how the newcomers played to seeing how much work the veterans have been putting in over the past few months between beach season and indoor training starting just a few weeks ago.
The Huskers will play their 2nd of the 3 spring matches on Friday, April 17th, but this time against Creighton, who are considered the Offfseason Portal Champions as they got big names like Ayden Ames, from Texas, out of it. This match will be at 7:00pm CST and will air on the Nebraska Public Media channel.
