Nebraska volleyball traveled to West Lafayette in Indiana to play a Sunday afternoon match against the #12 Purdue Boilermakers who have looked like they could be stiff competition in the B1G.
Purdue was absolutely no match for Nebraska today as they only took an hour and a half to defeat the Boilermakers in a match that was hyped up to be a possible 5 setter. The Huskers still haven’t lost a set since the Creighton match on 9/16 and have secured their 7th ranked win today.
In the 1st set of play, both
teams came out super strong both offensive and defensive with the score going back and forth basically for the entire set.
Right off the bat, Kenna Wollard, for Purdue, and Harper Murray both started 3 for 3 and showed that this match would be pretty even and tight all the way.
Purdue took a 10-7 lead during the 1st because of a Purdue ace and a couple errors on service receive and at the net that the Boilermakers could’ve taken full advantage of. Nebraska didn’t let this get them down as they quickly made it a tie game once again.
The match went back and forth again until we got to around the 20 point mark when Nebraska took the lead and made it to set point on a Bergen Reilly ace. Purdue got a point after this to make it a 2 point game, but Nebraska closed it out to win the 1st set.
Harper Murray continued her amazing night from Friday with 8 kills alone in the 1st set. Andi Jackson led the way hitting .778%. Murray and Jackson were the only solid hitters from the Huskers in the 1st as the rest of the team was either hitting negative or .000%.
Nebraska’s biggest lead of the match, thus far, came in the 2nd set when they were up 7-4, but Purdue quickly shut this down and closed the gap to one point at 8-7. The first 2 sets were just like a pinball game. Whatever one team would do, the other would do it next which kept the score close.
Rebekah Allick wasn’t having her best match today through 2 as she was hitting negative after the 1st set and not even .100% in the 2nd. Andi Jackson was helping while Allick was struggling though as she had a good match.
The Huskers went on a run to bring the 2nd set to a close getting a 16-12 lead. At this point, Allie Sczech came into the match as Virginia Adriano was struggling only hitting 3 for 11 at -.091%. They only let Purdue have 4 more points as the Huskers went on to win the 2nd set 25-16.
Harper Murray and Andi Jackson still topped the stat sheet for the Huskers after the 2nd with Harper leading in kills. Nebraska hit a little better in the 2nd coming in at .333% while holding Purdue to only hitting .069%.
Nebraska was tired of the Boilermakers sitting around and sticking with them so they just decided to run them out of the gym in the 3rd set so they could get home early tonight.
They took a quick 5-1 lead that eventually turned into a 13-5 lead. Purdue tried to make it close coming within 6 at 14-8, but they only scored 7 more points the entire set as the Huskers went on to win the set, and match 25-15.
Husker hitters, besides Murray and Jackson, struggled early, but after some changes and some waking up, they took off.
Murray led the way with 16 kills, hitting a crazy .640% and posting no errors on 25 swings. Wow. Jackson had 12 kills and hit .450% while also getting 3 blocks.
Rebekah Allick and Taylor Landfair were behind them with 6 kills each, but Landfair hit .385% while Allick struggled some at .125%. Allick also had 1 block.
Allie Sczech came into the match for just 2 sets and killed 5 balls, hitting .625%. Rounding out the lineup is Adriano and Teraya Sigler with 3 and Bergen Reilly with 2.
The Huskers will be back on the road starting Friday as they travel to Michigan for the weekend. On Friday, they play Michigan State at 6:00pm CT in East Lansing. This match will be competing with football who also plays on Friday against Minnesota at 7. The match will be on B1G+.
They will close out the Michigan trip on Sunday against Michigan in Ann Arbor. This match is set to begin at 1:00pm CT and will also be streamed on B1G+.
