Three takes from No. 3 Nebraska volleyball’s five-set loss to No. Utah

Nebraska outside hitter Lindsay Krause said it best: “those last three sets, we were just playing really flat.”

No. 20 Utah took down the No. 3 Huskers in the Devaney Center in a reverse sweep for NU’s first loss of the season (18-25, 24-26, 27-25, 25-22 15-13).

Here are my three takes on the match:

Nebraska won the first two sets 25-18 and 26-24. They had a chance to put Utah away at the end of the third set but they couldn’t.

The Huskers were leading Utah 24-23 and were one point away from sweeping their second top-20 team on the week (No. 19 Creighton on Wednesday).

Kayla Caffey committed a net violation. It’s not just Caffey’s fault. Lexi Sun had an attack error and gave Utah the point they needed to win the set. The entire team struggled to put the Utes away.

The whole team was exactly was Krause said “flat.” The crowd was willing them to a victory. Every person who could stand was on their feet cheering for the Huskers and they fell short.

In fact, the crowd got extremely involved and loud especially in the fifth set, but the Huskers still looked off.

This is not a new problem. Nebraska typically gives up a few match points. Against Creighton, NU gave up three match points in the third set to end the match.

During Monday’s press conferences, Cook said that to be great teams, you have to be great after the 20th point. Nebraska was not that on Saturday after the second set.

Finishing will have to be something the Huskers figure out before Stanford on Tuesday, Louisville on Saturday and all of their Big Ten opponents.

The Huskers did not have a great hitting game. All of its hitters struggled toward the end of the match, making it hard to shift the momentum away from Utah.

Left side hitters Madi Kubik and Sun each had three kills in the first set. Kubik had three more in the second and Sun added two. After that, they both fizzled out.

Kubik finished with six kills – not earning one in the final three sets. Sun had eight kills and eight errors, hitting zero.

Krause had a team-high 15 kills with two errors and hit .317 and had five blocks. She stepped up big time in the fifth set with four kills.

Caffey and Ally Batenhorst provided occasional sparks. Batenhorst, who finished with 10 kills, three errors and three digs, had four kills in the third and four sets. Caffey had four kills in set three and two kills on two swings in the fifth set.

Setter Nicklin Hames stopped setting the middle blockers often in the last few sets and Cook said they got out of rhythm.

Cook pretty much summed it up here:

“Callie really wasn’t putting balls away tonight and Kayla was struggling as well,” he said. “So then it comes down to your left sides and Ally gave us a spark but you can look at Lexi and Madi’s stats, they hit zero.

“You’re gonna have a hard time winning matches when that when they do that.”

Well, Cook didn’t lie when he said Dani Drews would be worth the price of admission on Monday. And he repeated himself after the game.

Drews had 27 kills and 15 errors on 68 swings. She served 20 times with one error and one ace. And she had 16 digs and one block. The fifth-year senior consistently mixed up her shots, got several kills from the back row, and rolled many balls onto Nebraska’s side.

But Drews had a lot of help from her teammates Zoe Weatherington and Madelyn Robinson. Weatherington had 17 kills and five blocks.

“She hits the crap out of the ball,” Hames said.

Utah’s setter Stef Jankiewicz did a good job of using all of her weapons and Nebraska couldn’t stop them. They struggled to block and defend against tipped and rolled shots.

Jankiewicz finished with 50 assists and 133 sets total.

Libero Vanessa Ramirez had 21 digs and the team had 78 as a whole. Nebraska just couldn’t get balls past them.

The Huskers were Utah’s first real test this season and they passed with flying colors.