No. 6 Nebraska (116-5, 10-2) came back in two sets to win and take No. 11 Minnesota (14-6, 9-3) to a fifth set but in the end, service errors and a home crowd advantage were too much for the Huskers to overcome.
They fell in five sets to the Gophers 22-25, 30-28, 21-25, 25-23, 9-15. The Huskers now have lost back-to-back Big Ten matches as No. 3 Wisconsin swept them at the Devaney Center on Wednesday.
Here are my three takes from Nebraska’s hard-fought disappointing loss to Minnesota:
During Nebraska’s 10-0 run against Big Ten opponents, they were one of the best serving teams in the league. They weren’t playing the best competition the conference has to offer but were still playing quality teams.
Against Minnesota, the Huskers had 12 service errors. Nebraska lost all three sets by a total of 13 points.
In the final set, NU had three service errors. All three were when the teams were tied early on. Those are momentum changers, especially playing at Maturi Pavilion in front of 5,400 Gopher fans.
Nebraska had eight errors in set five: three service errors, three hitting errors and gave up two aces.
The Huskers didn’t have a single service error in game four which they won.
Nebraska had five aces but didn’t put any consistent pressure on Minnesota throughout the game. NU had two aces in the first and second sets and one in the fourth.
There is a fine line between serving tough and serving errors. Nebraska needs to know when to toe that line and when to just serve the ball inbounds.
When playing teams like Minnesota or Big Ten teams in general, you can not give free points and expect to win.
This was one of the best defensive battles of the season.
Nebraska had a season-high 97 digs. Libero Lexi Rodriguez had a career-high 28 digs, breaking her previous record of 24. Setter Nicklin Hames had 24 digs along with her 53 assists.
Outside hitter Madi Kubik had 14 digs and a double-double with 15 kills. Defensive specialists Keonelei Akana and Kenzie Knuckles each had 10 digs.
As for the Gophers, three players had over 20 digs and left-side hitter sophomore Jenna Wenaas added 19 digs to her career-high 22 kills.
Opposite hitter Stephanie Samedy had a team-high 26 digs and a double-double with 20 kills. Libero CC McGraw had 25 digs and setter Melani Shaffmaster had 21 digs and 45 assists.
Minnesota had 107 total digs.
Nebraska and Minnesota set the top two digs per match by a team in the Big Ten. The previous high was Minnesota at Maryland with 94 digs in a five-set game.
The Huskers hit .135, their second-lowest of the season, and the Gophers hit .168, tying their lowest hitting percentage of the season.
There were some incredible rallies which makes for great volleyball, no matter what school is on your shirt.
Nebraska had 14.5 team blocks and Minnesota put up 10 blocks. Husker middle blocker Kayla Caffey had a match-high nine block assists.
The best block of the night came when the Huskers ran out of subs late in the second set and 5-foot-7 Knuckles rotated into the front row. The former high school outside hitter blocked Samedy to win the set 30-28.
I apologize for that terrible, terrible subhead. But yeah, Lexi Sun has arrived.
Freshman Ally Batenhorst has started every Big Ten game this season, including at Minnesota. Sun started the second set after Batenhorst had three kills and three errors.
Sun, an All-American, had 12 kills with seven errors and hit .116. That is still not great but in retrospect, no one hit great percentage-wise in the entire match. The highest was Caffey’s .280 clip that came on 11 kills.
Sun also added three digs and two block assists.
Batenhorst has hit negative in three of her last four matches and hit zero in the other match.
While Sun didn’t hit much better than that average wise, she made better decisions overall and came up with 12 kills.
The battle between Sun and Batenhorst just got more interesting. I wouldn’t be surprised if Head Coach John Cook considered giving Sun a shot at the starting position and seeing if mixing up the position can spark his team.
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