Digs: Nebraska volleyball middle blocker Lauren Stivrins return to practice

Nebraska volleyball has a big weekend ahead of them.

They are playing Michigan on Friday and Michigan State on Sunday. Many Nebraska volleyball legends will be at both matches as Jordan Larson, Terry Pettit and Cathy Noth are being inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame. NU’s 2000 and 2001 volleyball teams will be honored during Sunday’s match.

Current Nebraska volleyball defensive specialist Kenzie Knuckles said there will be extra electricity in the air in the Devaney Center.

“We’ll try to prove ourselves, show off a little bit,” Knuckles said.

Knuckles and outside hitter Lindsay Krause met with the media in preparation for the weekend. Here are their comments:

*** Head coach John Cook said on Monday that middle blocker Lauren Stivrins returned to normal practice this week after recovering from a back injury.

Stivrins, a three-time All-American, doesn’t have a timeline for when she will return to a game, Cook said. But for now, her teammates are excited to have her back in practice.

“It’s really fun,” Knuckles said. “I’ve missed playing with her. She has that fiery side, competitive side. It’s going to light underneath the freshmen and all of us.”

*** After losing three consecutive games, Nebraska’s players had a “come-to-Jesus” talk, as multiple players have said.

Knuckles said she has seen a change in the team since that conversation.

“We’re a really close team, so sometimes it’s hard to say the things that need to be said,” she said. “We’ve done a really good job of saying those things and not taking them personally and being hard on each other and making sure we hold each other accountable.”

*** Knuckles said the defensive effort against Northwestern and Iowa in the Huskers’ previous two games was “great.”

“I thought there were minor things that we needed to figure out and little plays that we needed to alter,” she said. “But other than that, I thought we made a huge step up from t two weeks ago.”

*** On Monday, Cook said his goal for the team this week was to go from good to great.

Great teams focus on the details and hold each other accountable on effort plays, Cook and Knuckles said.

“The first thing that kind of popped in my head is we know how to do great things. Sometimes we do great things, but they turn out to only be good because we can’t back them up one after another,” Knuckles said.

*** Knuckles said every freshman coming into college cares about what their team and coaches think of them. But this team had to have a conversation about letting some of that pressure go.

“Our team is very close, so care a lot about what each other thinks or what Coach thinks,” Knuckles said. “We love him, so we care a lot about what he thinks. We had to have a talk of like, “It’s OK, we don’t need to care what he thinks, we need to make sure that we’re playing and we’re doing the things that we care about.”

*** Krause was named the Big Ten Freshman of the Week after 27 kills and hitting .500 in two matches.

“I was super exciting,” she said. “I couldn’t have done it without my team behind me. It was super cool to that we got our groove back just in time for Big Ten play.”

*** Krause played in her first Big Ten volleyball matches last week and said she had fun and got a glimpse of what it’s going to be like.

“That’s what we’ve been looking forward to this whole time,” she said. “Coach (Cook) is like Big Ten play, it’s going to be tough and every time you play in the Big Ten can be tough.”

*** Nebraska has been preparing to play against Michigan’s serves and hitters in practice.

“We know that they have some tough servers and they have some pretty strong outside hitters, so we’re trying to prepare for that and be able to block and dig those hitters,” Krause said.

*** Krause said she and her dad were texting and he said “royalty is coming back this weekend” about the Hall of Fame members and former teams.

“It’s super cool to have them back and they can see the cultures that they helped build is still being carried on today in us as players,” she said.

Krause said she thinks it’ll be extra special for the players returning to experience the atmosphere in Devaney because all of the players played in the Collesium.