Nebraska 3-Penn State 0 – 25-20, 25-17, 25-18
What a day it’s been for Husker nation so far with some being bad, but this match being the bright spot. After almost 24 hours of rainfall in Lincoln, the city ended up getting around 6.5 inches of rain and lots of flooding to deal with.
It’s a good thing this match was in Happy Valley tonight since Antelope Creek, right by the Devaney Center, flooded and took out several walking paths to the arena and almost took out the bridge as well.
As for many people
in the Lincoln metro, and surrounding areas, flood water was everywhere. I was, unfortunately, one of those people as well taking water in our basement. With a shop vac, lots of fans, and a dehumidifier running, the water will hopefully be dried out soon.
The Huskers quickly reminded the Nittany Lions who runs the conference by sweeping them in about an hour and a half of game time. While we won’t get 2 matchups this season, this one will suffice seeing Caroline Jurevicius barely play and Whitney Lauenstein about pop a blood vessel in her head thinking the 24th point in the 3rd was in.
Teraya Sigler was back in full swing tonight. She played all 3 matches and looked great like she didn’t even have an injury last week. We had another injury scare early in the match as Bergen Reilly landed on a Penn State players foot twisting hers. She got back up and didn’t miss a point.
Nebraska came out firing on all cylinders leaving Penn State scattering to figure out how to fight back when they were already down 7-1. PSU clawed their way back to make it 19-18, in the 1st set, but Nebraska is an amazing red zone team and only allowed 2 more points before closing out the set.
The Huskers and Nittany Lions played sets 2 and 3 pretty evenly, going back and forth, but Nebraska always found their way to 15 first and then to 20, the red zone, first. They always close in the red zone, and that didn’t change today.
One of the best rallies came in the 2nd when Campbell Flynn, with the help of Laney Choboy, came in to be a serving sub and was basically another DS in the back row as she flung herself in order to keep a ball up and help get the team a kill. On the very next point, Harper Murray had some words for PSU as she killed a ball.
B1G Network had a questionable announcer tonight, that I hadn’t seen before, saying that Whitney Lauenstein was teammates with Murray and Andi Jackson among other things. A quick fact check will let you know that Lauenstein’s last season at NE was 2022 and this was the senior class’ senior year of high school.
The reffing also got questionable near the end of the match. An obvious net violation and touch were missed and the Huskers quickly challenged to get these points back. It kind of seemed like the refs were promised some of that Penn State frat coke if they threw the match to PSU. Probably not, but who knows. It is HAPPY Valley after all.
Harper Murray went off tonight killing 13 balls, hitting .414% and only 1 error. Murray can be error prone sometimes, but tonight she was completely locked in and ready to go.
Andi Jackson also had a stellar match with 11 kills, hitting .625% and also only 1 error. Jackson also totaled the team high of 7 blocks, with 1 solo block. Murray was 2nd with 4 blocks.
Murray and Jackson were followed up by Sigler with 8 kills, Virginia Adriano and Manaia Ogbechie with 6, and Reilly and Ryan Hunter followed them up with 1 each. Hunter’s kill solidified the match for the Huskers when she came into the match just for match point and boy did she do her job.
DBK also reached a milestone tonight as well becoming the 4th fastest coach in DI history to reach 25o wins. It’s really not that hard when your senior class has only lost about 6 matches.
The Huskers will only have 1 day off before they are back on the court on Saturday night. They will travel to College Park, Maryland to take on the Terrapins of the University of Maryland. The match will begin at 6:00pm CST and will be streamed on B1G+.
