The Rally: Nebraska vs Creighton in Omaha a “celebration of volleyball”

Nebraska volleyball’s season is starting to ramp up in a big way.

The No. 3 Huskers travel to No. 19 Creighton on Wednesday for a 6:30 p.m. matchup on FS1. Then NU will host No. 20 Utah on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

Husker head coach John Cook called Wednesday’s match a “celebration of volleyball” in the state of Nebraska.

“One thing that I always am thankful for and admire and respect is that we’ve got two basically top-10, top-15 volleyball teams going at it in the state of Nebraska,” Cook said. “And then you throw in Nebraska Omaha, who had a phenomenal weekend even though they were 1-2 but man they played great volleyball.

“It just makes me proud to be a part of Nebraska volleyball in this state from YMCA all the way up to Division I colleges,” he said.

Here is a full breakdown of Nebraska’s upcoming opponents and storylines:

No. 19 Creighton (6-0):

The Bluejays entered the top-25 after winning the Bluegrass Battle in Lexington, Ky. They beat USC 3-2 on Friday and swept then-ranked No. 3 Kentucky, 2020 National Champions, and UNI the following day.

As a team, the Bluejays hit .297 against the Wildcats, including .372 and .333 in the first and second sets respectively and held Kentucky to hitting below .200 on the match.

Before the AVCA volleyball rankings came out on Monday, Cook gave his own rankings at Monday’s press conference.

“Creighton, I don’t know what they’re ranked this week but I’d vote them second,” Cook said. “They’ve had the most impressive pre-season up to this point of anybody besides Texas so we got our hands full.”

Cook said he knows there’s a “great challenge” ahead of his team but he also said Nebraska is playing their best volleyball yet this season.

No. 20 Utah (5-0):

Before traveling to Lincoln, Utah battles Weber State on Thursday and will likely be coming to their match with the Huskers 6-0. Nebraska will be Utah’s toughest opponent so far this season.

Last season, the Utes finished 13-4 in the Pac-12 conference and were swept in the first round of the NCAA tournament to Pittsburgh. This season, Utah has beaten Utah Valley twice, Cal Poly, then-No. 22 San Diego and Hawaii.

Jaela Zimmerman, Creighton:

Outside hitter Jaela Zimmerman was named the Bluegrass Battle MVP and the BIG EAST Offensive Player of the Week after helping her team go undefeated in the tournament. Against Kentucky, the senior hitter had 18 kills, a .304 hitting percentage and 11 digs.

Zimmerman, who went to Malcolm high school outside of Lincoln, was named Preseason All-BIG EAST. After leading the Bluejays to a BIG EAST championship and to the NCAA tournament, she was also named Honorable Mention All-American by both the AVCA and VolleyballMag.com.

Naomi Hickman, Creighton:

Along with Zimmerman, middle blocker/right-side hitter Naomi Hickman was named Preseason All-BIG EAST. Hickman’s 1.18 blocks per set and .330 hitting percentage on the season earned her a unanimous selection to the All-BIG EAST Team and an AVCA All-East Region First Team.

The fifth-year senior has the highest hitting percentage of the team with .346 after six games. She also has the most blocks (22) including three solo blocks.

Zimmerman’s play has a major impact on Creighton’s success. In fact, the Bluejays are 24-3 in her career when she has seven or more kills.

Norah Sis, Creighton:

Outside hitter Norah Sis has made an immediate impact on the Jays. She was named the BIG EAST Freshman of the Week after Creighton’s impressive weekend. The No. 28 recruit in the class of 2021 per PrepVolleyball.com had 16 kills, two errors and 17 digs against Kentucky. She hit .341 in the match.

Sis, who went to Papillion-La Vista, has a total of 73 kills, 3.65 kills per set, a .283 hitting percentage, seven blocks and 51 digs in her first six college volleyball matches.

Nebraska will be worrying about and playing against Sis for many years to come.

Dani Drews, Utah:

Outside hitter Dani Drews is one of the best Utah volleyball players in the history of the program. In 2020, she became the first player in program history to be named AVCA First Team All-American twice.

With one more match before Nebraska, Drews could very well earn her 2,000th career point in the Devaney Center. She currently is sitting at 1,979 points. The fifth-year senior has 1,753 career kills and 833 digs.

Drews, who was named AVCA Pacific South Region Player of the Year for the second season in a row, had 85 kills, 4.72 kills per set and is hitting .308 in her first five games of the season.

“We’ve had some great matches with (Utah),” Cook said. “They have a great player, Dani Drews. It’s worth the price of admission.”

.414:

Nebraska hit .414 in its first set against Arizona State on Saturday. It’s the third-highest team hitting percentage of any set this season. They hit .462 in the first set vs. K State and .625 in the final set against Georgia.

This set vs. Arizona State stood out to Cook and his players because everything was clicking and setter Nicklin Hames and the offense had the most rhythm so far in the season, according to Cook.

“I feel like Arizona State was really a little glimpse into what our offense can look like if it’s firing on all cylinders,” Hames said. “I can’t remember when we hit but I feel like we hit for a very pretty high percentage and the tempo was on point.

“We’re dangerous when we’re like that,” she said.

Hitting like this and establishing a rhythm early against Creighton will be one of the keys to victory in Omaha on Wednesday.

.405:

Yes, another hitting percentage but this one belongs to middle blocker Kayla Caffey. She hit .405 in Nebraska three wins in the Ameritas Players Challenge. Her effort earned her a spot on the Ameritas Players Challenge All-Tournament team.

In the five-set battle with Omaha, Caffey hit .600 with no errors when she entered for the final two sets of the match. She had four blocks in the fourth set and three in the fifth set. What the stats can’t capture is the spark she brought to Nebraska’s offense to help them win a close match.

Caffey was named the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week for the first time in her career on Monday. She is definitely a player to watch this week against two high-powered offenses.

3:

It took Creighton three sets to beat No. 3 Kentucky in their own house (25-19, 25-22, 27-25). They followed up that performance up with another three-set win over Northern Iowa (25-20, 25-21, 25-11).

In fact, the Bluejays have swept all but one of their opponents in the pre-season. USC took them at five sets in the Bluegrass Battle but Creighton pulled out the win.

Nebraska has now moved up on spot to No. 3 in the AVCA volleyball rankings and it seems No. 3 is Creighton’s lucky number.

Nebraska is still settling in:

Cook said on Monday that he is not happy with how his team is developmentally wise at this point of the season.

“I feel like we’ve just started getting a little bit of a rhythm on how we want to play,” he said. “We’re still trying to figure out who goes where.”

Nebraska has deep competition at each of the three front row positions and Cook has been mixing and matching lineups during the Huskers’ first five games to try and solidify a lineup for the season.

NU’s setter Hames missed the first two matches and roughly a week of practice with an injury.

“Nicklin is basically 10 days behind so I combine all those things, we have a really high upside when we figure it out,” Cook said.

“So that’s why I’m not happy or satisfied right now because I know what our upside is and we haven’t done that over a long period of time yet in a long burst like we’ll have to do Wednesday night and Saturday,” he said.

Whitney Lauenstein vs. Lindsay Krause at opposite hitter:

Freshmen Whitney Lauenstein and Lindsay Krause are still battling for the starting right-side hitter position.

Krause started against Omaha and had 12 kills with five errors and hit .189. She also had nine blocks. The 6-foot-4 hitter was the first of her and Lauenstein in against Georgia. However, Lauenstein became the main right-side hitter after Krause had four errors on five swings.

Lauenstein had eight kills with two errors, a .429 hitting percentage and two blocks against Georgia. She was the first opposite hitter in against Arizona State on Saturday. Lauenstein finished the match with 11 kills, two errors and a team-high .529 hitting percentage.

Cook, who is in his 22nd year as NU’s head coach, said he has never coached a player like Lauenstein.

“She’s just a very fast athlete,” he said. “I can’t explain, I’ve really never coached anybody like her, how she moves and how she hits but she’s very fast and fluid. And she flies, she gets up there and she’s got a really fast arm.

“It’s hard to block her and the only time you can really get her is when she brings it down. But when she gets up there and gets big and maybe she’s gonna go over the block and she hits a hard, she’s got a lot of heat on that.”

The Blackshorts:

Cook said he has “four elite defensive players” in Keonilei Akana, Lexi Rodiguez, Kenzie Knuckles and Hames.

Occasionally, all three of the defensive specialists fill the back row and Rodiguez said she loves those moments.

“I love it when we’re all back there,” the libero said. “We’re all bought into not letting a single ball touch the floor. It’s really awesome to know that the people next to me are just as focused and determined to get every ball up.”

Team captain Knuckles said her, Akana and Rodiguez play a game within the game by trying to not let a single ball hit the ground.

Having four players that defend at the levels as high as those three, plus Hames, will give the Huskers an advantage against Creighton and Utah.

Back at the CHI Health Center:

On Wednesday, the Huskers will be in the CHI Health Center for the first time since losing against Texas in the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight. Prior to that, NU and CU met in 2018 with a full center to watch Nebraska come back from a 2-0 deficit to defeat the Bluejays. In fact, the attendance of 14,022 is the largest crowd in NCAA volleyball history.

Cook said the reason Nebraska prefers to play in Omaha is that more Nebraska volleyball fans around the Omaha area, Council Bluffs, Iowa and western Iowa can attend a Husker game. The Devaney Sports Center in Lincoln sells out 8,000 seats every match so fans that normally don’t attend games can watch their Huskers play in person.

The CHI Health Center is typically scattered with lots of red and blue but it’s certain that no matter what team fans are cheering for, they are grateful for the strong roots of volleyball in the state of Nebraska. And the chance to celebrate it 14,000 strong.