The Rally: Nebraska volleyball hosting good opponents, former teammates

“Good, not great” is how Nebraska volleyball head coach John Cook described many aspects of the Huskers victories over Colgate and Kansas State in the Husker Invitational last weekend.

There is room for improvement, especially with so many new players and NU relaying on its backup setters with three-year setter Nicklin Hames out for Nebraska’s opening weekend.

The Huskers have a great, not good, opportunity to continue improving and getting game experience on Friday and Saturday against three more opponents. This weekly edition of The Rally will dig into the opponents, players to watch, storylines and a new section.

Here is the full schedule for the Ameritas Players Challenge starting on Friday:

Friday, Sept. 3:

9:00 a.m. – Arizona St. vs. Georgia

11:00 a.m. – Nebraska vs. Omaha

3:30 p.m. – Arizona St. vs. Omaha

6:00 p.m. – Nebraska vs. Georgia

Saturday, Sept. 4:

3:30 p.m. – Omaha vs. Georgia

6:00 p.m. – Nebraska vs Arizona St.

Omaha: The University of Nebraska Omaha volleyball team went 13-6 overall last season and was swept in the Summit League championship game to Denver, the No. 1 seed. This season, the Mavericks dropped a match to Iowa State in their season opener and followed with a sweep of Drake.

UNO had three players leave the program including senior middle blocker Anna Blaschko. Blaschko played in 71 of Omaha’s 72 sets last season and had 170 kills while hitting .286 on the season. She had the second most blocks on the team with 44.

The Mavericks added two freshmen and Iowa State transfer Jaiden Centeno and Wichita State transfer Marriah Buss.

Georgia: The Bulldogs finished with an 8-14 record in the 2020-21 season that was solely SEC conference opponents. So far in 2021, Georgia has swept Morehead State and Winthrop and lost to Pepperdine in a five-set match. In those matches, the Bulldogs hit .299 as a team.

Georgia lost four seniors including setter Brynn Chandler, who had 357 assists last season in 80 sets. Freshman Clara Brower has been the Bulldogs setter so far into their three games. Outside hitter Rachel Ritchie also graduated from Georgia and contributed 131 kills in 50 sets last season.

The Bulldogs have added several talented freshmen that are already making an early impact to replace the four seniors they lost.

Arizona State: The Sun Devils swept A&M Corpus Christi and Cal Poly and lost to Louisville in five sets so far during this 2021 season. Against A&M Corpus Christi, they hit .476 as a team and are hitting .291 on the season as a team.

Last season, Arizona State went 6-14 in their only PAC-12 conference schedule. Since then, they have lost five players including some with extensive experience on the court.

Middle blocker Kennedi Boyd, who played in 62 sets and had 109 kills, transferred to Utah State. DS/L Paige Denton played in 61 sets and contributed 119 digs, but has moved on. Senior middle blocker Megan Beedie played in 72 sets last season and had 61 kills.

OH Sadie Limback, Omaha:

6-foot-0 right-side hitter Sadie Limback was honored as a part of the 2020 AVCA All-Midwest Region Team, the second Maverick in the Division I era to do so, and was named on the All-Summit teams in 2019 and 2020.

Limback has 1,047 career kills and had a hitting percentage of .404 in 2020. She led the Summit League in hitting percentage and her 4.08 kills per set was the third-most in the conference.

The senior dominates in any league and was named the Summit League Offensive Player of the Week for four consecutive weeks in the spring season.

DS/L Claire Mountjoy, Omaha:

Libero Claire Mountjoy has played in all of Omaha’s last 81 matches in her previous three seasons and appeared in the 26 before that as a freshman. Mountjoy was named the 2020 Summit League Defensive Player of the Year.

She is chasing after the Maverick’s all-time career digs record and is 89 digs from breaking Angie Reicks’s record which was set in 2011. Mountjoy currently has 1,847 career digs.

OH Amber Stivrins, Georgia:

Yes, you read that name correctly. Amber is the young sister of Nebraska middle blocker Lauren Stivrins and just like Lauren, is a player to watch out for.

The younger Stivrins sister led the Bulldogs in 2020 with 212 kills, 3.53 kills per set and 699 attacks. However, her hitting percentage with .170 for the season.

The 6-foot-2 outside hitter transferred from Louisville and is in her second year at Georgia. At Louisville, she was a member of the 2019 ACC All-Freshman Team.

OH Lyric Stewart, Georgia:

In Lyric Stewart’s first three college volleyball games, she has 26 kills, five hitting errors and is hitting .467, including two .500 games. The 5-foot-11 outside hitter is leading the team with 12 blocks.

Fellow freshman Abby Maesch leads the team in kills with 30 but is hitting .195 thus far. Still another athlete that could be dangerous in Georgia’s offense.

OH Iman Isanovic, Arizona State:

As for the Sun Devils, outside hitter Iman Isanovic is one of their most powerful hitters. The Bosnia native was a 2020 All-Pac-12 honorable mention. The junior led Arizona State with 265 kills, 3.4 kills per set and a hitting percentage of .174 in 2020.

DS/L Annika Larson, Arizona State:

Junior libero Annika Larson had double-digit digs in 2020 15 times and surpassed 20 four times. Larson already had 41 digs in her three games of the 2021 season and has good control over the ball when recovering those balls.

Stat Attack is the newest section of The Rally. Here I will pick a stat that stood out the most to me from Nebraska’s previous game(s) or an important/interesting stat from an upcoming opponent.

The week’s stat is the Huskers hit .462 in their first set against Kansas State on August 28. NU had three hitters whose hitting percentage was at or above .500. Middle blocker Kayla Caffey hit .800 with four kills on five swings.

Cook highlighted this set and said the reason the team hitting percentage was so high was because of the impressive passing. He said Nebraska’s pass last season held them back in big matches.

“First game (against Kansas State) if you just watch our video, play after play, Kennedi’s just literally standing at the net,” Cook said. “Every ball’s coming right to her.

“That’s a good sign as opposed to running all over the gym bump setting, which we did a lot of that last year. We got to be pretty good out-of-system because we’ve got a lot of practice on it.”

If this team can be consistent on their passing skills, their hitting percentage will be high enough that they’ll be hard to beat.

Another week of uncertainty at setter:

Three-year starting setter Nicklin Hames did not play in Nebraska’s first two games due to an ankle injury. Cook said she returned to practice on Monday and would not be limited.

Cook previously said that Hames is a player that “needs to be ramped up” so it’s unclear if she’ll be playing on Friday and Saturday. If she is able to play, it’s unlikely she’ll play in all three games after coming off of an injury.

Freshman Kennedi Orr started last Saturday vs. Kansas State but “hit a wall,” as Cook described, in the third set. Sophomore Anni Evans came in and sparked a fourth-quarter comeback after a 25-11 previous set.

5-1 vs. 6-2 system:

On Monday, Cook said he wakes up in the middle of the night thinking about whether to run a 5-1 system or a 6-2 system. In a 5-1, there is one setter and more room to rotate defensive players like Kenzie Knuckles and Keonelei Akana.

However, for now, the 6-2 is appealing because Evans, standing at 5-foot-9, is undersized for the front row. Orr, who is three inches taller than Evans, has less experience in Nebraska’s offense and is trying to regain her stamina after a knee injury.

Against K-State, Cook ran a 5-1 system and that seemed to work better for the Huskers than the 6-2 despite the tradeoff of Evans’ size in the front row.

With the potential of Hames returning, I’m sure NU has been practicing both systems. I wouldn’t be surprised to see all three setters play this weekend if Hames is healthy.

Friendly competition:

Each team at the Ameritas Players Challenge has a reason for their invitation to come to Lincoln. Omaha, Georgia and Arizona State all have connections to Nebraska’s current players that a scheduler couldn’t pass up.

Omaha was invited because they are a good and close program but also because of their many personal connections to Nebraska’s roster. Outside hitter Shayla McCormick played volleyball with NU OH Lindsay Krause at Omaha Skutt. UNO DS Brilee Wieseler played with Husker freshman Rylee Gray at Elkhorn South.

Omaha’s Olivia Curry and Nebraska’s Madi Kubik were teammates at West Des Moines Valley. Both Anni Evans and Whitney Lauenstein played with UNO MB Abby Plouzek at Waverly. And finally, Callie Schwarzenbach and UNO OH Sadie Limback played for KC Power Club volleyball when they were in high school.

Georgia was invited because Lauren Stivrins’s sister Amber plays on the team. And Arizona State has another former Omaha Skutt volleyball player in setter Allie Gray, who will get to play against two of her former teammates in Lincoln.

The Ameritas Players Challenge tournament will be a reunion of sorts with some great volleyball guaranteed to be played.