Rutgers spent last weekend in Queens handing points away at the service line, 17 missed serves against Penn and 17 more against St. John’s. On Friday night in Lincoln, the Scarlet Knights finally kept the ball in the court, four aces against four service errors, and got to find out what it looks like when the other team is the one with the serve.
Rutgers lost 21-25, 22-25, 15-25 to No. 1 Nebraska at the Bob Devaney Sports Center in the Big Ten opener for both teams, in front of 10,497. Nobody expected
anything else, and nothing else happened.
Nebraska hit .320 with 47 kills and 15 attack errors on 100 swings. Rutgers hit .137 with 34 kills and 21 errors on 95. The Huskers out-blocked Rutgers 7-6, out-dug it 35-29 and sided out at 61.0 percent to Rutgers’ 47.3. Rutgers out-aced Nebraska 4-3 and missed one fewer serve, and it did not come close to mattering.
The gap had a name. Laney Choboy went to the service line seven times, and Nebraska won 21 of the 28 rallies she served. Against every other Husker server, Rutgers sided out at 60.9 percent. Against Choboy, 25.
She had one ace.
Laney Choboy Serves Three Sets Away & Rutgers Rallies Too Late
Every set opened the same way. Rutgers led the first 1-0 and 2-1 on kills from Imani Howell and Skylar George off Brooke Baldwin sets, and it was level at 2-2 when Choboy went back to serve. She aced Kenzie Dyrstad on the first ball, George hit an attack error off a Lily Bolen set, and Harper Murray killed twice around an Andi Jackson kill to make it 2-7. George ended the run with a kill off Bolen, then missed the next serve.
Rutgers chased the rest of the set. Aspen Maxwell hit two straight attack errors at 5-10 and 5-11, Olivia Mauch aced Kaila Kalama-Bajet at 8-14, and by 13-21 the only question was how close it would get. Karis Willow’s turn at the line got Rutgers to 16-21 on a Howell kill off Baldwin and a George kill off a Howell set.
Jackson’s kill at 18-24 brought up set point. Rutgers saved three, on a Choboy service error, a Malia Romes kill off a George set and a Bergen Reilly attack error, before Jackson terminated to end it. Rutgers hit .313 in the set, its best of the night, to Nebraska’s .412, with two ties and one lead change.
The second went the same way, only more so. Rutgers led 1-0 and 2-1 again, and Choboy came back at 2-2. Jackson and Murray stuffed Maxwell, Murray killed, Jackson and Reilly stuffed George, and it was 2-5 before Maxwell found the floor off Baldwin. Baldwin’s own turn at the line was Rutgers’ best stretch of the set, three straight points from 7-11 on a Willow kill off her set, an ace on Murray and a Virginia Adriano attack error.
Rutgers never got closer than 10-11.
Choboy’s second turn of the set went from 12-15 to 12-19 on two Jackson kills, a Maxwell attack error and a Natalie Robinson attack error. After a Jackson kill made it 13-20, Murray served three straight of her own, the last an ace on Jenna DeLaMater for 13-23.
Then Rutgers woke up.
George killed off Bolen, went to the line and served three straight on a Robinson kill off Bolen, a Willow kill off a Kenzie Dyrstad set and a Jackson attack error. Jackson killed for set point at 17-24, Robinson and Romes stuffed Skyler Pierce, and Kenzie Dyrstad took the ball and held it for four straight with a Howell solo stuff of Murray, a Willow solo stuff of Reilly, a Willow kill off Bolen and a Howell and Willow stuff of Manaia Ogbechie.
Rutgers had scored nine of the last 10 points, saved five set points and pulled within 22-24.
The next swing was a Willow attack error.
Rutgers hit .083 in the set to Nebraska’s .154, with two ties and one lead change.
Rutgers’ last lead of the night came at 4-2 in the third. Howell aced Keri Leimbach, George killed off a Maxwell set for 3-1 and a Murray attack error made it 4-2. George’s attack error off a Kenzie Dyrstad set made it 4-3, and then the ball was back in Choboy’s hands. Jackson stuffed Robinson, Romes hit an attack error, Murray killed and George hit another, and it was 4-7.
Rutgers hit .000 in the third, eight kills and eight attack errors on 27 swings. Howell aced Leimbach again at 12-16, and Choboy’s last turn went from 13-18 to 13-22 on two more Jackson kills, a Jackson and Murray stuff of Romes and a George attack error. Reilly killed for match point at 14-24, Murray missed her serve, and Pierce put away the next ball. Nebraska hit .444, with two ties and two lead changes.
Stats Breakdown
Howell and Willow tied for the lead in Scarlet with 10 points apiece, and got there on very different volume. Howell had six kills on nine swings with two errors, .444, plus two of Rutgers’ four aces, a solo block and two block assists. Willow had seven kills and two errors on 17 attempts for .294, an ace, a solo block and two assists. Six of her seven kills came in the second set, which is the whole Willow pattern in one match, nothing in the first and one kill in the third.
George led Rutgers with 29 attempts and finished with nine kills, six errors and .103, plus four digs. For once, none of Nebraska’s three aces landed on her. Romes had three kills against four errors on 17 swings, minus-.059, with two block assists. Maxwell hit .091 with five kills and four errors on 11, and Robinson .182 with four kills and two errors on 11, plus two block assists.
The setting split was Baldwin 17, Bolen 11, Kenzie Dyrstad two. Kenzie Dyrstad led Rutgers with nine digs and Bolen had eight, and the three aces Nebraska served landed on Kenzie Dyrstad, Kalama-Bajet and DeLaMater, one apiece.
Murray led the match with 15 kills on 31 swings, five errors, .323 and 17 points. Jackson was the most efficient player on the floor, 14 kills and two errors on 19 swings for .632 with a solo block and three assists for 16.5 points. Ogbechie added seven kills at .308, Reilly had 39 of Nebraska’s 45 assists, and Choboy dug a match-high 15 balls. Below the top three the Huskers were ordinary, Pierce hitting .143 on 21 swings and Reilly .000 on five, and it did not matter.
What Didn’t Work (and One Thing That Did)
Choboy’s serve.
Twenty-eight rallies, seven Rutgers points. She aced Rutgers once, so the damage never showed up in the reception errors column. It showed up in what Rutgers did with the ball afterward. Eleven of Rutgers’ 21 attack errors came on Choboy’s serve, including five of George’s six, and so did four of Nebraska’s seven team blocks. She had a run of at least four straight points in every set, and there was no answer for it.
The ball distribution was the other one. George took 29 swings at .103 and Romes 17 at minus-.059, while Howell, the most efficient hitter Rutgers had, got nine. Some of that is where the ball goes when the pass is off, and some of it is a choice.
The one thing that did work was the serve, of all things. After 34 missed serves in two matches in Queens, Rutgers missed four against the No. 1 team in the country and out-aced it. Howell aced Leimbach twice, Baldwin aced Murray, Willow aced Pierce, and the best four rallies Rutgers played all night came with Kenzie Dyrstad at the line at 18-24.
Rutgers is 9-4 and 0-1 in the Big Ten, and plays at Iowa on Saturday at 7 p.m. at Xtream Arena in Coralville, before a trip to Ohio State on Thursday.
Nebraska was always going to be Nebraska.
Rutgers finally solved its own serve on Friday night. It just never solved Choboy’s.
