Nebraska Volleyball progressing well with young team

Nebraska volleyball has a very young team this year, but all Husker fans know the program doesn’t rebuild, but reinvent. That’s certainly been the case this year, at least so far.

After losing their first match of the season, Nebraska volleyball has been on fire, winning their last six games. Two of those six wins came against ranked opponents (Oregon and Creighton) and the most recent victory came against a team that was ranked at the beginning of the year (Iowa State).

It was almost good that Nebraska dropped their first match of the year because that seemed to take a lot of pressure off these players. Since then, there have been some growing pains, but that’s to be expected with a young group. For the most part, the Huskers have been gelling really well and their 6-1 record indicates just that.

The starting core is made up of just two seniors and the rest are either freshmen or sophomores, including freshman setter Nicklin Hames. Hames has adjusted well to arguably the most important role in the sport and as the matches go on, it’s become noticeable how she and the hitters are getting more comfortable with each other.

The two starting seniors, Mikaela Foecke and Kenzie Maloney, are co-captains of the team this year and are the only players on Nebraska’s roster with two National Championship rings. They’ve made it to the Final Four every year of their collegiate career and that has to be motivating them to make it back in their fourth and final season.

Maloney had 14 digs in the match against Iowa State and continues to be the driving force defensively for Nebraska. When Nebraska plays solid defense, not many teams can stop them (see last year’s National Championship Game) and that starts with Maloney.

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Foecke didn’t have a great match against Iowa State (at least not compared to what she normally is capable of), hitting just .167, but that allowed sophomores Lauren Stivrins and Jazz Sweet to step up and do major damage.

Sweet had a .500 hitting percentage, notching 11 kills with zero errors while Stivrins hit .462 with eight kills and two errors. These two have stepped up greatly for the Huskers despite only being sophomores.

The Cornhuskers have only lost one match to this point, but things are going to get MUCH tougher after this weekend. Big Ten play will begin on September 21st and the Huskers will have their work cut out for them as they go for their third straight conference title.

As of now, Nebraska is the top ranked Big Ten program in the country, sitting at number four, but Penn State, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois are all literally right behind them in the standings. It’s the toughest conference in college volleyball (Pac 12 could certainly be argued) and this young team will definitely be tested as they take on their biggest rivals.

Nebraska has faced three ranked teams so far and is 2-1 in those matches. Their most impressive moment of the season to this point was their match against Creighton last Thursday. The Huskers “traveled” to Omaha to face the then-14th ranked (now tenth ranked) Blue Jays and quickly fell behind two sets to none.

With this being a young team, it wouldn’t have been surprising to see them give up in that third set and let Creighton run away with the victory. Nebraska didn’t do that though and fought back to force a fifth set, which they ended up taking 15-10. It was the type of match that Nebraska volleyball fans have grown accustomed to watching.

This might be a young team that is still learning, but the match against Creighton proved Nebraska is still a force to be reckoned with when it comes to the National Championship discussion. This weekend they’ll host the Husker Invite where they’ll have a double-header against Central Michigan and New Mexico State on Friday and then will face Missouri State on Saturday.

What to watch for: Let’s see if the Huskers can continue to eliminate service errors. They had 13 in their only loss of the season, but had eight against Iowa State on Sunday. The number is slowly coming down and when Nebraska serves the ball well, they’re nearly unstoppable.

Go Big Red!

*ALL STATS COURTESY OF HUSKERS.COM*

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