No. 1 Nebraska Volleyball Blanks No. 7 Wisconsin During Blackout at Devaney Center

No. 1 Nebraska volleyball played lights out in front of a sold-out crowd dressed in black Saturday night to hand No. 7 Wisconsin a 3-0 loss. The Huskers (17-0, 6-0 Big Ten) capped a 2-0 week against top-15 opponents with a 25-23, 25-14, 25-20 sweep over the Badgers (11-5, 5-1) during the annual blackout inside Bob Devaney Sports Center. “It feels great,” Coach Dani Busboom Kelly said after the win. “It was an awesome atmosphere tonight, and I thought Indiana was a great atmosphere too. So just to sweep two ranked teams, one on the road, one at home, I think it makes a statement that we’re playing great, but we all know there’s another level there and some fun things we can sprinkle in as this season continues to go on.” Nebraska laid down the black TeraFlex court, the Huskers wore black jerseys and fans received the message to dress in black loud and clear. The aesthetics, the enthusiasm, the opponent and the Huskers’ level of play made for arguably the best atmosphere of the season inside the renovated John Cook Arena. “It’s so fun,” Harper Murray said . “We love doing the blackout, and there’s just a different energy that comes into the gym when we have a game like this. Obviously, we did it with Penn State last year, and then now Wisconsin this year, and it’s so fun for us because you can just tell that the fans are into it, everyone’s committed to the theme, we’re committed to it, and I think it just gives the game more hype, and that’s what we love. “We play better under pressure, and we love the hype around our games because that’s what we want. We want people to come and watch; we want them to have fun when they’re watching our games. The blackout is always such a good idea, and I love when we do it every year, and our fans really commit to it.” Harper Murray swings over the Wisconsin block for one of her match-high 20 kills. Photo by John S. Peterson. Murray played a big part in the crowd’s energy as she posted a season-high 20 kills on .471 hitting. The senior misfired on her first two attacks then only tallied two more errors the rest of the match as Bergen Reilly looked to her at every opportunity. “I think it helps that Bergen continues to set me because she trusts me enough to make better swings and not make as many errors,” Murray said. “I just have to remind myself I know how to play volleyball, I know how to hit a ball, I know how to play against a big block. I have to do it every day in practice, so just reminding myself that I do this every day, trusting my training and finding that confidence. I feel like, like I said, the fact that Bergen continues to set me and put me in good positions to score helps and probably makes that 10 times easier on me.” Reilly finished with 39 assists, six digs and two kills while setting Nebraska to a .396 hitting percentage. Teraya Sigler added nine kills on .533 hitting plus three blocks as the Badgers had no answer for the left-side attack, which in turn opened things up for Andi Jackson to finish with 11 kills on .400 hitting in the middle. “It’s really freeing and it opens up the offense a lot,” Reilly said of her pins’ performance. “A big kudos to our middles too, just because they’ve gotten established so early in the season and they’ve done a great job in so many of our games that now if we can get the outsides going, everyone still has to respect our middles. I think it’s just a really a team effort, but kudos to the pins too for just putting it away when they have a little seam in the block.” Defensively, Nebraska held the Badgers to .171, their third-lowest percentage of the season. Laney Choboy led everyone with 13 digs while Oliva Mauch added 12 as the Huskers out-dug Wisconsin 44 to 28, including 35 to 20 in the first two sets. Manaia Ogbechie led the effort at the net with seven stuffs as Nebraska out-blocked the Badgers nine to two. “I think our block and our back row just suffocated them,” Reilly said. “We talked in the locker room, littles don’t really score a point, but they really controlled that game. It’s just so freeing at the net, or even being in the background, knowing, ‘Hey, Liv and Laney are back there; it’s probably going to be up.’ I think they find ways to control the game without scoring, and I don’t think there are many littles in the country that can do that.” Wisconsin started four freshmen against the Huskers’ senior-heavy lineup, and Busboom Kelly said the experience edge showed itself in the long rallies and from the service line. “When we’re able to execute in a long rally or a scramble play, we don’t get frantic, and I think that has a lot to do with being very experienced and being in this situation before.” First Set The opening frame set the tone for a great match with 12 ties and five lead changes. Every time one team threatened to pull away, the other responded. Nebraska used a 5-1 run to take a 16-13 lead midway through, but Wisconsin fired back with its own 5-1 spurt. Nebraska used a 4-0 run to pull ahead by three again at 21-18 and earned set point at 24-20, but Wisconsin ripped off the next three points to put the pressure back on the Huskers. Murray sent her first two attacks long early in the set, but Reilly went back to her with the game on the line and the senior didn’t miss again, pounding the ball down into the court from the back row to seal the win. “I didn’t even know she had her first two attacks as errors,” Reilly said. “She just really radiates confidence, and as a setter, that’s something you love to see. I think a lot of people on our team do a great job of that — after they make an error, they want the ball again. It makes your job really easy when everyone’s just demanding the ball and they want to go get a kill for you.” Murray and Sigler led the way with five kills and four digs apiece as Reilly tallied 14 assists. Nebraska hit .270 and held Wisconsin to .167 with the help of 15 digs as the Huskers won a couple extended rallies that fired up the crowd. Second Set The second set started much like the first, with each team ripping off a 4-0 run during the first 15 rallies. The game saw a pair of lead changes and five ties, the last at 9-all, but the Huskers took control from there. Laney Choboy reaches out to keep a ball up against Wisconsin. Photo by John S. Peterson. The Cornhuskers created separation with a 7-1 run (including five straight with Mauch serving) then followed with another 5-0 run featuring Choboy at the line to blow the game wide open. “Laney and Liv are just so key,” Busboom Kelly said. “I told them in the locker room, they give me so much confidence as a coach on the sideline, so I can’t imagine what they do to their team when they’re in. It just feels like we’re going to run a ton of points because they serve great, they dig everything, they’re really intentional with their communication. Just everything they’re doing is just at a high level, from just their play to their demeanors to their communication, which is super impressive.” The Huskers won four of the last five rallies for good measure, with Jackson delivering the final kill. Murray went off for eight kills on 12 attacks, while Jackson added six kills on nine swings. Nebraska hit .424, as Reilly tallied 14 more assists, and held Wisconsin to .053 to turn the game into a blowout. The Huskers doubled up the Badgers in digs (20-10) and earned a 4-0 edge in blocks. Third Set The third set reverted back to first-set form with five lead changes and 13 ties, the last at 16-all. Sigler earned the sideout to break the stalemate then Busboom Kelly sent sophomore Keri Leimbach in to serve — leading to two more Husker points as Ogbechie and Virginia Adriano teamed up for back-to-back blocks. “We just had talked about, ‘Hey, let’s get her in there to serve,’ and she executed,” Busboom Kelly said. “That’s what we need is somebody to come off the bench and to make a difference, and she wasn’t worried. She stuck a couple serves and kind of gave us confidence to close that game out.” The mini run gave the Huskers the edge they needed. Eight straight sideouts followed before Eva Travis hit long to break the chain and give Nebraska match point, and Murray finished it with another back-row kill to put an exclamation point on her best performance of the season. Like with Leimbach, Busboom Kelly had sophomore Campbell Flynn in as a serving specialist for the final two points. “We’ve talked to them throughout the season so far that they need to be ready, what their roles could be, so I think they’re ready,” Busboom Kelly said of her serving subs, who did not see the court until those last few rallies. “Now that we’ve been together for multiple years, they kind of understand maybe the way we like to sub and kind of how our minds work as coaches, so I think they’re ready.” Murray tallied another seven kills on 10 errorless swings while Sigler chipped in four more on six attacks without a blemish. The Huskers only had one error all set as Nebraska got better and better offensively throughout the match. They hit a blistering .538 in the third to out-pace the Badgers’ .323 clip. “I thought we passed really well,” Busboom Kelly said. “Wisconsin’s definitely one of the toughest serving teams we’ve played all year, and we rose to the occasion and just allowed Bergen to get into a flow. I thought our players just kept going after it; we didn’t get soft or get tentative in big moments, and so that usually translates to kills when you’re playing really aggressively.” Up Next Nebraska will look to keep its momentum rolling during another split-location week as the huskers will visit Northwestern on Thursday before returning home to host No. 16 Purdue.