Nebraska 3 Utah 1- 21-25, 25-8, 25-18, 25-13
Utah scouted Nebraska to perfection, the coaching staff developed a scheme to score points and the players executed that scouted plan well. Utah hit pinpoint spots on their serve, tipped the ball to hard-to-find openings in the Husker defense and dug the driven attacks from Nebraska. Utah took the first set based on this scouting report combined with just enough Nebraska errors.
While there was good scouting, the first set of this top 25 match up was also
a demonstration of the high skill level that exists in college volleyball. When #22 competes with #1, you have a wealth of high-level players in the game. Nebraska did what a top team must be able to do; they adjusted and responded.
Utah did a number of things that worked in set one that did not work as well for the remained of the match. The service pressure that resulted in aces off the Utah serve in set one never happened again. All the aces were in set one. Nebraska Head Coach said in her post-game interview that the serve receive passers needed to shift their mindset from trying to pass perfect balls to simple passing well.
There were a number of things that certainly worked for Nebraska tonight. Taylor Landfair had four, three-point runs from the service line. Her serve is low and flat and drives the opposing team passers deep into their court. Her serve was highly effective in getting Utah out of their offensive system. It was often on Landfair’s serve that her team Rebekah Allick found her overpass kills.
Let’s not kid around, Allick is ridiculously good and terminating the ball when it is passed over the net. She can do it in any kind of scenario, and the height of the ball doesn’t seem to matter. Sometimes the opposing team is just trying to shovel the ball over and Allick hangs in the air to kill their free ball. Other times a team is attempting to tip over her block and she decides to wait that tip out in the air and then slams it down. She is excellent at a skill that most middles work on but never get as good as Allick. Tonight, Allick had 13 kills on 18 attempts to hit .667. Out of this world!!!
Another thing that worked tonight was Nebraska’s floor defense. Part of the Utah game plan was to send the ball to right back where Nebraska’s setter Bergen Reilly plays defense. Reilly understood the assignment. She continuously dug balls. Early in the match, this strategy threw Nebraska’s offense off kilter, but later in the match, they adjusted well and earned kills off Reilly digs. Reilly ended the night leading all players on the court with 18 digs. Just like in many other sports, in volleyball defense wins championships. Fire up for Reilly’s defense!
It also worked that Laney Choboy played right back defense in sets three and four. Choboy has lightning speed reaction time and nothing found the floor while she was playing that spot. Choboy was playing right back defense after DBK moved her out of the libero jersey for the night. After set two, Olivia Mauch played Nebraska’s libero and Choboy played defensive specialist.
After the match DBK said she made the switch to vary the serve receive passing. The other pivotal sub made in this match was putting Allie Sczech in for Virginia Adriano on the right side towards the end of set one. Sczech brought her block tonight earning three as well as her offense earning six kills.
Next up for Nebraska, tomorrow night is Grand Canyon. Saturday’s match will be at 6:00pm and will be televised on Nebraska Public Media. Grand Canyon defeated Drake in five sets earlier this evening.
