Nebraska saw an exciting weekend of Husker sports. Volleyball continued to win as they pulled out their 3rd win of the season. Football also had a 33 point win over UTEP to start the season 1-0 for the first time since 2019.
Huskers sports have another exciting week ahead as volleyball will play 3 matches, 1 away and 2 home, while football will take on the Colorado Buffaloes for one of the most anticipated games of the season. It should be another exciting weekend in Lincoln with a lot more wins to come!
If you weren’t watching the Texas-Minnesota volleyball match last night, you missed a good one. The #18 Golden Gophers took down the #1 Longhorns in 5 sets and this was the first time since 2019 that Minnesota has beat a #1 team.
Husker volleyball extended their winning record to 3-0 after wins over Texas A&M – Corpus Christi and TCU this past weekend. TCU put up a fight against the Huskers by taking a set from them and almost winning another one.
After losing the 3rd set, the Huskers knew they needed to step it up and came out swinging to easily take the 4th set and win the match. TCU could be one of those sneaky good teams this year with some of the fire power that they have.
Harper Murray had an amazing performance against TCU with 20 kills and 6 digs. She had a .302 hitting percentage. Her passing and serve receive has seemed to improve a lot from last season and she has had a great start to the season.
Nebraska landed two players on the B1G Players of the Week list this time around. Rebekah Allick took Defensive Player of the Week and Bergen Reilly is the Setter of the Week.
Allick had a outstanding week to say the least. She was named MVP and Best Middle Blocker at the AVCA First Serve Showcase. She also had 11 kills and 12 blocks in the win over Kentucky. In the 3 wins this week she average 2.40 kills and 1.90 blocks/set. She also had a .415 hitting percentage.
Reilly had 10.73 assists/set 3.18 digs per set in the 3 wins this past week. She was also named Best Setter at the AVCA First Serve Showcase. She tallied 3 double-doubles and a career-high 5 service aces.
Other B1G Weekly Award recipients include Eva Hudson, of Purdue, winning Player of the Week and Izzy Starck, of Penn State, winning Freshman of the Week.
The Huskers will start off the week with a trip to Dallas, Texas to take on the 1-1 SMU Mustangs. Last season when SMU came to Lincoln, the Huskers easily beat them 3-0. We could see the same result as last year.
SMU played an exhibition match against TCU on August 23rd and beat them 3-0. They also dropped their first real match of the season against a pretty strong Hawaii team as well. Their one win of the season so far comes against San Diego.
The Mustangs were a tournament team last year who made it to the second round before losing to Texas. They finished 18-1 in conference and 26-7 overall. They only had one win against a ranked team last season though against #14 Baylor.
SMU returns their two top outside hitters from last season in Grad Student Natalie Perdue and Senior Jamison Wheeler. Perdue had 310 kills, hitting .195 on the season. Wheeler had 367 kills while hitting .249 for the Mustangs. Wheeler is already off and going this season with a .269 hitting percentage.
It looks like the Mustangs had to start from scratch at the middle blocker position this offseason as all their players at this position either transferred or graduated. They brought in a Wichita State Grad Transfer, Natalie Foster, a freshman from Arlington, Texas, Natalia Newsome, and a Florida Grad Transfer, Nnedi Okammor.
So far this season, Foster and Okammor have been their go-to middle blockers with 10 and 8 blocks respectively. The Huskers could use this to their advantage as sometimes inserting new players into a system can be challenging for the first few matches.
Grad Student Celia Cullen returns as their starting setter this year after coming off of being named the AAC Setter of the Year last year. She averaged 10.59 assists per set last season in her senior year.
Casey Batenhorst, former Husker player Ally Batenhorst’s sister, also plays setter for the Mustangs and will look to continue to get into matches and do what she can for the team.
Ellie Bolton and Brooke Frazier seem to be sharing the DS/Libero load for the Mustangs. They have each played all 9 sets on the season and have 17 and 12 digs respectively.
Nebraska starts off week 2 of the season Tuesday night and they look to continue to dominate. After the Texas loss on Monday night, the Huskers look to have another undefeated week and move into that #1 spot.
The match is set to begin at 7:00pm CT and will be aired on ACC Network. This match won’t be able to be streamed on B1G+ so you will have to stream through the ESPN app if you don’t have access to ACC Network on cable.
#2 Nebraska (3-0)
#2 Bergen Reilly 6’1” SO Setter
#5 Rebekah Allick 6’4” JR MB
#6 Laney Choboy 5’3” SO DS/L
#7 Maisie Boesiger 5’6” JR DS/L
#8 Lexi Rodriguez 5’5” SR DS/L
#9 Kennedi Orr 6’0” SR Setter
#10 Olivia Mauch 5’6” FR DS/L
#11 Leyla Blackwell 6’4” SR MB
#12 Taylor Landfair 6’5” SR OH
#13 Merritt Beason 6’4” SR OH
#15 Andi Jackson 6’3” SO MB
#21 Skyler Pierce 6’2” FR OH
#22 Lindsay Krause 6’4” SR OH
#27 Harper Murray 6’2” SO OH
SMU (1-1)
#2 Naala Kasunga 6’2” FR OH
#3 Celia Cullen 6’1” Grad Student Setter
#4 Ellie Bolton 5’7” Grad Student DS/L
#5 Casey Batenhorst 6’1” JR Setter
#6 Brooke Frazier 5’7” SR DS/L
#7 Naya Shime 6’0” Grad Student OH
#8 Mia Silva 5’9” FR DS/L
#11 Natalie Foster 6’4” Grad Student MB
#12 Natalia Newsome 5’11” FR MB
#13 Jentry Lamirand 5’11” JR OH
#15 Jamison Wheeler 6’1” SR OH
#26 Nnedi Okammor 6’4” Grad Student MB
#31 Maya Tabron 6’1” Grad Student OH
#53 Natalie Perdue 6’0” Grad Student OH
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