Welcome to the very first edition of ‘Digs’, where to get the scoop on Nebraska volleyball press conferences, news, player updates and more.
Head coach John Cook spoke to the media on Wednesday about Nebraska’s first five days of practice. They had two-a-days on Monday and Tuesday and one practice on Wednesday.
Here are some quick hits and notes on Cook’s comments and how his team is shaping up.
**** Freshman defensive specialist Lexi Rodriguez had the best play of all the freshmen thus far in practice. Cook said she bump-setted a shanked ball of her shoulder that set up a kill.
**** Setter Anni Evans did not practice on Wednesday because she has a head cold. Cook said she is getting tested for COVID to be safe.
**** Cook said he is not opposed to having daily testing for COVID-19, similar to what his team did last season. They currently are not doing any testing but also the media to keep some distance from the players when interviewing them.
**** Freshman Ally Batenhorst is the only outside hitter not playing on the right side.
“I think she’s a better left side,” Cook said. “That’s her natural spot. Those other guys are more sooted to play over there. That would be a Volleyball 101 video session to explain all that.”
**** Callie Schwarzenbach was named the ‘Lifter of the Year’ earlier on Wednesday.
This year, Cook said, players voted every day after summer workouts on who the Lifter of the Day was. Those votes were tallied up and Schwarzenbach was first and Lexi Sun was second.
Cook said he can “absolutely” see those results in Schwarzenbach’s game.
**** Middle blocker Kayla Caffey also impressed over the summer with her abilities and strength.
“Kayla Caffey crushed the Husker Power index testing, crushed it, and she’s like a different player out here right now with her explosiveness. Compared to where we were a year ago, she is a completely different player.”
**** The competition at middle blocker is very close with three players currently competing for the job. Lauren Stivrins is not practicing yet, not timeline according to Cook, but she will hopefully be able to add her talents to the group as well this season.
“I’m glad we have four because it helps for training and all four of them can play so there is probably the tightest competition there right now,” Cook said.
**** Cook asked his older players to make sure that the freshmen knew the drills and were ready to practice with the team on day one.
“It’s not like a typical freshman year were our freshmen, we’ve got to go train them for a couple of weeks on their own court because they can’t hang in there,” Cook said. “This freshmen group is talented and they’re well dialed into what we need to do.”
**** Three former Nebraska volleyball players, Jordan Larson, Justine Wong-Orantes and Kelsey Robinson, won gold for the USA indoor volleyball team last week.
Cook said he stayed up to watch the match at 12:30 A.M., just like he had done for the others. He was so nervous, he was sick to his stomach watching the game.
Larson, one of the greatest Husker volleyball players of all time, had the final kill to sweep Brazil in the final match.
“The announcers were saying ‘they better set Jordan here’ and I’m saying the same thing, set her and she will kill it,” Cook said. “For match point in 2006, we called a play and set her so I knew she had it in her to do it.
“It’s only fitting that she got the final kill.”
Seeing his former student-athletes win a gold medal, and the USA’s first indoor volleyball medal, brought tears to his eyes.
**** Wong-Orantes will be bringing her gold medal to show off to the current Husker volleyball team next week, according to Cook.
“We’ve had Bronze medals shared in here and we’ve had silver medals shared in here, but never a gold so it’s going to be pretty cool,” he said.
**** Larson is coming back for her Nebraska Hall of Fame induction during the first weekend of October.
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