Three takes from Nebraska’s sweep of Arizona State

Nebraska won the Ameritas Players Challenge by beating Omaha (3-2) and Georgia (3-1) on Friday and sweeping Arizona State on Saturday night.

Setter Nicklin Hames was named the MVP of the tournament. Libero Lexi Rodriguez and middle blocker Kayla Caffey were named on the All-Tournament team.

Here are my three takes from Nebraska’s win:

Head coach John Cook and his players define ‘playing Nebraska volleyball’ as playing up to the highest standard of a championship program.

Rodriguez said she felt like her team “played Nebraska volleyball” against Arizona State.

“Today we were all bought in and really focusing on Nebraska volleyball things which are like serving and passing and defense and just playing together,” said the libero who had 12 digs and four assists.

“I think from the start, we went out there and did that and we just kept getting better, like each set and everyone was putting in all effort,” Rodriguez said. “And you could just tell watching us that we were playing together and that it was just really special.”

Cook said his team has started to get into a rhythm and play Nebraska volleyball.

For the Huskers against Arizona St., ‘playing Nebraska volleyball’ came in the form of an 8-0 run in set two to crush the Sun Devils 25-12. This means having one service error and holding their opponent’s hitting percentage to -.026 in the second set. And this means hitting .414 as a team with three errors in set one.

Cook still has to decide on a starting lineup for the upcoming games but said he feels that he has some great film to watch from the Arizona St. and Georgia matches to help make his decisions.

Freshman Ally Batenhorst had her first big game at Nebraska, recording her first career kill and block assist against Arizona State.

She had four kills in the first set, including the two final points of the match. In the second set, the 6-foot-4 outside hitter had three kills and a block. She added two kills in the final set.

Batenhorst started for the first time versus Omaha during Nebraska’s first match on Friday but didn’t record a kill. She served often against the Mavericks and Georgia. She had three hitting errors and two service errors against UNO.

“I wanted to give her a shot,” Cook said. “Because when she started off yesterday against UNO, Nicklin was in there, Nicklin gave her some really tough sets. So she just never really had a chance to get going.

“These guys got to know we believe in them and (so I) gave her another shot and she really took advantage of it,” he said. “It was really, really good to see. You can see she creates a lot of problems up there.”

Batenhorst finished with nine kills and two errors on 21 swings and a .333 hitting percentage.

Outside hitter Lexi Sun hit .114 against Omaha with six errors and .067 versus Georgia with seven errors on Friday.

“Lexi wasn’t feeling great last night, and I was thinking about not playing her this match,” Cook said. “But she looked pretty perky in practice today and said she felt better.”

Sun led Nebraska with 14 kills and hit .364. She had two errors and more blocks versus the Sun Devils than Omaha and Georgia combined.

She came up big in a tight third set with five kills. Sun dumped over a kill and then, on the next play, she had a solo block to give NU a 22-20 lead.

“I had a feeling she would be on a mission tonight after last night and she was, served great, passed great,” Cook said. “She did a nice job.”

Cook was right, Sun was definitely on a mission.