No. 11 Nebraska (20-6, 14-3) dominated No. 15 Penn State (19-8, 12-5) in a sweep on Senior Night at the Devaney Sports Center (25-14, 25-23, 25-23). The Huskers have now won 11 of the last 12 matches against the Nittany Lions.
Nebraska hit .186 on the match but over .240 in sets one and two. Penn State hit .088, their lowest in the Big Ten season. The previous low was also against the Huskers when they hit .176 in a four-set loss.
Here are my three takes from Nebraska’s impressive victory over Penn State:
The Huskers took the first set 25-14 and hit .242 with five hitting errors.
“That first game was one of the best games I’ve seen in 20 years of how we played,” Nebraska Head Coach John Cook said. “I mean, we were almost flawless.”
Cook said a big part of the Huskers’ victory was their serving and consequently, their ability to limit middle blocker Kaitlyn Hord, one of the top hitters in the Big Ten. Hord, who averages 2.97 kills per set, had five against the Huskers, including four in the third set.
The Huskers had four service aces and six service errors. Penn State struggled at the service line with eight service errors and only one ace.
“I think overall this game was the most consistent that we’ve played in the past two weeks,” setter Nicklin Hames said. “This is what we see in practice every day and it’s great to finally put it out there in an actual game.”
Nebraska has a big weekend with Wisconsin and Purdue back-to-back on Friday, Nov. 26 and Saturday, Nov. 27. They will need to show more consistency against these opponents and build upon the momentum of sweeping a top-15 team.
Nebraska went down 22-15 in the second set and Cook called a timeout. He said there were a few things he told his team to work on going into set three. One of those was passing.
Whitney Lauenstein went in for Lindsay Krause, who was hitting zero, after the timeout.
The improved passing and Lauenstein sparked the Huskers to a 10-1 run to win set two 25-23.
Lauenstein had five kills, hit .500 and added two block assists in one and a half sets. She got her first taste of the Nebraska-Penn State rivalry.
“It was pretty intense. But I just turned to my teammates,” Lauenstein said. “(Hames) was like, ‘Come on, let’s be Big Hit Whit tonight.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s be Big Hit Whit tonight.’ I just kind of look for my teammates to really bring me out of the tunnel vision that you can have sometimes.”
Lauenstein had a block assist with Lauren Stivrins on her second point on the court and said that helped settle her in. The freshman also said she aims to provide a lot of energy to her teammates on the court.
“If I bring some fun and spark and energy, everyone will kind of calm down and just play their game and I think that’s what they did,” Lauenstein said.
The crowd of 8,347 brought a lot of energy towards the end of the second match. Nebraska won’t have that extra momentum boost for most likely the rest of the season. They will have to find a way to create it from within.
A guestimated 7,000 fans stayed for the Senior Night festivities following the match.
“It’s a lifetime memory for them,” Cook said of his seniors.
Nebraska honored five seniors in Lauren Stivrins, Lexi Sun, Nicklin Hames, Callie Schwarzenbach and Kayla Caffey. Both Stivrins and Sun returned for their sixth season but the other three could decide to come back next season.
Lauenstein said the other players wanted to win so bad for their seniors.
“You just got to go out with a bang during your senior year,” she said. “I think that we really all played for them and it was no selfishness at all. We just played all for them and gave it all we got.”
Cook said this class of seniors has been through something no other class has: a pandemic, a spring season with no fans, racial injustices and more.
“And they’ve handled it really well,” he said. “They’ve really matured through all that, because it’s been a different journey for those guys, compared to a normal senior in Nebraska. So it’s a pretty special group.”
The Huskers hope to have a handful of more matches with this senior group. But despite Saturday’s Rutgers match being canceled, they got the night they deserved and a win that they will probably always remember.
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