SB Nation • 13 min read

Nebraska Volleyball Ends Their Road Trip with a Match Against Rutgers

Nebraska volleyball is coming off of an absolutely dominating match against Penn State Friday night coming into Piscataway, New Jersey to take on the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. Nebraska will look to keep

that same energy going in order to get another sweep.

Looking back at last night, Nebraska was not giving Penn State a single inch. They really took last year personal and came back with a vengeance to prove that they are the better team and deserved that #1 next to their name. The Huskers held the Nittany Lion to hitting in the negative at -.114% while the Huskers hit a crazy .437%.

Former Huskers Caroline Jurevicious and Maggie Mendelson were held to having very mediocre nights as Jurevicious got benched after the 1st set with no kills and 1 error on 5 attempts for a -.200% hitting percentage. Mendelson had a little bit better of a match with 3 kills, but no blocks.

The Huskers will end their roadtrip against a Rutgers team that is looking to keep improving as they have been struggling for awhile now. Nebraska will look to continue the party from Friday night and get another dominating win.

A Look at Rutgers

2024 Record: 6-25 (1-19 in B1G)
Ranked Wins in 2024: None
NCAA Tournament: Did not qualify

The Rutgers Scarlet Knights are a team that have had a pretty rough go for over the last 10 years. They were part of conference realignments, before it was a big thing, and haven’t really been able to find much success in the modern era.

Rutgers was originally a Big East team up until the end of the 2012 season. The Big East had a split with the “Catholic 7” going one way and other schools going another way before coming back together in later years and welcoming new teams. Rutgers, on the other hand, stayed out of the Big East.

Rutgers joined the American Conference for one year, 2013, before officially joining the B1G in 2014. They had accepted an invitation to join the B1G back in November 2012, but didn’t start playing with the conference until the 2014 season. This is where Rutgers struggles started to be more prominent in the volleyball world.

The Scarlet Knights haven’t had a winning season since 2012. This was their last year as a member of the Big East Conference. 2023 has been their best season in the B1G when they went 10-20. This season included a ranked win over Minnesota, but no NCAA Tournament appearance. It looks like their last trip to the tournament was 1982 which isn’t a pretty stat for them.

They have already beat their win total from last season and we are only in the 2nd week of B1G play. Last year, they only had 6 wins total on the year. As of October 3rd, they already have 9 wins. Head coach Caitlin Schweihofer is in her 6th season at Rutgers and is looking to help bring this Rutgers program to another level.

Rutgers was picked to finished last in the B1G Conference this year and also didn’t add anyone to the Preseason All-Conference Team. They also finished last in the conference last year only winning 1 match, of the 20 played. during B1G play.

Sophomore OH/OPP Aspen Maxwell and Senior OH Tara Garvey have been bearing the most of the load of the offense for the Scarlet Knights this season as they lead the team in kills so far.

Aspen Maxwell transferred from Missouri to Rutgers last season and has been one of their top players since doing so. She had her career high in kills last season with 21 in a 5 set match. So far this season she has 202 kills and is hitting .309%. Maxwell is also 2nd on the team in blocks with 37.

Tara Garvey is also a transfer, coming from Villanova, but it is her first year at Rutgers in 2025. Garvey is 2nd on the Rutgers squad in kills right now with 118 and is hitting .288%. She has contributed defensively as well a little bit, but she is mostly an offense force for the team.

Junior MB Zora Hardison has been the top defender for Rutgers this season so far. She made her way into the starting lineup during the last 10 matches of the season and has remained there since. Hardison finished 2nd on the team in blocks last season with 79, averaging 0.97 a set. She already has 56 blocks this season and is averaging 1.22 a set.

Sophomore MB Natalie Robinson is the other middle blocker in the rotation for the Scarlet Knights. She had a big accomplishment personally and for the program in her freshman year last year as she recorded the most blocks by any Rutgers freshman in history with 123. Robinson also topped the stat sheet with 13 blocks which put her 7th in rally-era season records.

Robinson has proved to be a really good player and standing at 6’4” will be hard to hit around on Saturday night. This season she has 31 total blocks, with 7 of them being solo, and is averaging 0.65 blocks a set. She is also an offensive threat as well as she has 89 kills and is hitting .368%. When she attacks, she finishes and will need to be on Nebraska’s radar.

Rounding out their starting lineup will most likely be Senior Lexi Visintine at DS, but we could also see her at OH and Sophomore Lily Bolen at setter.

Saturday’s match will begin at 6:00pm CST, but will only be available for streaming on B1G+. You will have to subscribe to a monthly or yearly subscription to get access to the match. Don’t worry if you don’t have it, or want it, though because Nebraska football will mostly likely still be playing as that game starts at 3:00pm CST against Michigan State.