Husker Volleyball Takes a Quick Trip to Purdue on Sunday

After one match at home, Nebraska is back on the road for only one day as they travel to #12 Purdue on Sunday afternoon. Hopefully the short turnar...

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What is the story about?

After one match at home, Nebraska is back on the road for only one day as they travel to #12 Purdue on Sunday afternoon. Hopefully the short turnaround from their Friday night match against Washington and the travel don’t affect them too much.

Friday’s match and Sunday’s will be two different stories as we swept Friday, but Sunday could possibly go to 5 sets since both teams are very good this season and have played competitive 5 set matches against other ranked teams.

Even though a lot of girls like

Harper Murray, Campbell Flynn, Kenna Cogill, and Keri Leimbach went to the Tate McRae concert on Thursday night, they still had a great night.

Harper Murray had her best night in a while hitting over .400% and putting balls in the right places to earn points. Safe to say, Murray can do that again if she keeps her game at that level.

After last nights match, Rebekah Allick took the lead in the hitting percentage category for all of NCAA DI Volleyball. She is currently at .475% and has 106 kills on 177 attacks this season.

A Look at Purdue

2024 Record: 27-7 (6-4 B1G)
NCAA Tournament Result: Lost to Louisville in the Regional Final
Ranked Wins (Purdue ended at #9): #10 Kentucky, #16 Minnesota, #21 USC, #13 Oregon

The Purdue Boilermakers have been one of the top teams in the B1G Conference since the 2016 season when they struggled, going 19-14. They also haven’t had a losing season since 2009 when they went 14-17.

Even though they have been a program that has been on the upper half of the standings year after year, they have yet to win a National Championship during this streak of good seasons.

After last season, the Boilermakers lost some major players like Sophomore OH Chloe Chicoine to Louisville, Junior OH Eva Hudson and RS-Junior MB Lizzie Carr to Kentucky, and finally MB Lourdes Myers and Raven Colvin to graduation. Most people thought Purdue would struggle this season, but they have proved them wrong.

Even though they have lost lots of fire power, they still have lots of ammunition that have kept them in the same position as years prior. One of their girls is competing with Penn State’s Kennedy Martin for top hitter in the nation right now.

That girl is Junior OH Kenna Wollard who has been amazing for Purdue this season taking most of the swings for the team just like Martin does for PSU. She, currently, has 261 kills, hitting .258% this season. This puts her 2nd in the B1G in kills just under Kennedy Martin.

Wollard was also named the ACVA National Player of the week and B1G Player of the Week this last week so Nebraska has their work cut out for them with Wollard offensively. Defensively, she is also very very good recording 100 digs and 26 blocks so far this season.

RS-Sophomore OPP Grace Heaney has also kicked it up a notch for the Boilermakers this season as she is hitting .320% while also being a huge force on defense. She has has excelled even more than Wollard as she has recorded 114 digs and 49 digs.

Wollard has almost 100 more kills this season than Heaney, who’s in 2nd on the team in kills, which is pretty crazy, but shows that Wollard is really the bread and butter to this team.

The last piece to their hitting offensive trio is Senior OH Akashi Anderson who is currently sitting .260% this season, Just a little better than Wollard, but she hasn’t taken as many swings as her.

Junior Dior Charles and Grad Student Lindsey Miller are Purdue’s starting middle blockers who are no Allick and Jackson but are extremely talented and have been amazing at the net. Charles is currently sitting at 9th in the B1G in blocks while Miller is 2nd. They are both above Allick and Jackson in this category.

Their offense runs through one of the best setters in the conference Junior Taylor Anderson. She is currently 1st in the B1G with 619 assists and is averaging 10.67 assists/set. With as many kills as Wollard has, it isn’t surprising that Taylor Anderson has this many assists.

Purdue has always been tough competition for the Huskers as they have taken us to 5 sets in multiple matches in the past few years. I don’t really see tonight being any different with the Huskers winning in 5. The match is set to begin at 12:00pm CT on B1G+. GBR!