Huskers Thrill Record Crowd with Sweep of LSU

Lincoln ? The second-ranked Nebraska volleyball team remained unbeaten on Friday night, sweeping its fifth consecutive opponent with a 25-19, 25-15, 25-20 victory over visiting LSU in front of an NCAA regular-season record crowd of 13,412 at the Bob Devaney Sports Center
The Huskers were proficient offensively, hitting .387 on the match after committing just three hitting miscues through the first two sets. The team percentage was just off a season best, while NU went 53 rallies at one point during the first and second sets without a hitting miscue.

Senior All-American Jordan Larson paced an efficient night for the Husker offense, pounding 14 kills while attacking at a .375 clip. Sophomore Lindsey Licht added 10 kills on 22 swings, while sophomore Syndey Anderson dished out 33 assists and added nine digs to help the Huskers improve to 7-0 on the year.

Nebraska also got solid efforts out of middle blockers Kori Cooper and Amanda Gates, who combined for 12 kills on .435 hitting and six blocks. Cooper totaled eight kills and four blocks, while Gates had four kills and keyed a pair of Husker runs in the first set with strong serving.

Defensively, the Huskers out-blocked the Tigers, 7-4, while totaling 46 digs to LSU's 39. The great defense led to 21 LSU hitting errors, as the Tigers hit just .109, becoming the fourth straight Husker opponent to hit .110 or lower. Sophomores Tara Mueller and Kayla Banwarth had 11 digs apiece to pace the Big Red, while Licht and junior Cooper each recorded four stuffs.

The crowd of 13,412 broke the NCAA regular-season attendance mark of 13,396 set last October against
Hawaii. It also marked the third time in the last two seasons that the Huskers rewrote the NCAA record-season attendance record.

Nebraska overcame a slow start to take set one, 25-19. LSU scored the first four points of the match and built the lead to 6-1, forcing an early Nebraska timeout. The Huskers responded by rattling off five straight points en route to taking a 9-7 advantage on a Cooper kill. LSU would regain the lead at 12-11 and continued to hold a slight advantage before the Huskers took control late, putting together a decisive 9-1 run that put them in front 23-17. Trailing 16-14, Nebraska ran off six straight points, including five with Gates at the service line, to build a 20-16 lead and force the Tigers to take both of their timeouts.

The Huskers hit .452 in the first set, recording just one error and 15 kills on only 31 swings. LSU managed to hit just .125, but the Tigers served four aces in the set, tying the NU opponent high for an entire match this season.

NU started much better in set two, jumping out to a 5-1 lead and never trailed in taking a 25-15 victory. The Husker offense continued to roll as Nebraska built a 15-7 lead. NU put down 13 kills on its first 20 swings of the set, led by four kills from Larson and three from Gates. Leading 19-11, the teams traded points before Nebraska scored the final three points to take the set, 25-15.

Nebraska hit .552 in the second set, with Larson leading the way with five kills on eight swings. After the first two sets, Larson had 10 kills on 17 error-free swings to pace an efficient NU attack which hit .500 through the first two sets, putting down 33 kills on only 60 swings.

The third set was a much closer affair, with six ties and three lead changes through the first 30 points. Neither team led by more than two until a net violation on LSU gave the Huskers a 17-14 advantage. Nebraska pulled away from there, leading by as many as six before settling for a 25-20 victory that closed out the match
 
Brittnee Cooper led LSU (4-2) with nine kills on only 14 swings, while Kyna Washington had seven kills and a match-high four aces in a losing effort.

With the victory, Nebraska (7-0) advances to play New Mexico (8-0) at 3 p.m. Saturday at the NU Coliseum for the Ameritas Players Challenge championship.

In Friday’s first match, New Mexico used a match-high 19 kills from Jeanne Fairchild to record a 3-0 sweep (25-23, 35-33, 25-23) sweep of St. John’s. The Red Storm (5-4) will take on LSU in the third-place match at 12:30 p.m.

Coach John Cook
Opening statement
“I asked (Assistant) Coach (Erik) Sullivan before the match how we were going to play, and he said the thought the first ten points Nebraska was going to play real shaky. He was right. I asked him why and he said he just thought with the crowd and the environment we’re probably going to have a little bit of anxiety and be a little tight. You saw the results ? missed serves and overpasses. So once at that 6-1 timeout, we took a deep breath and settled down. We went 53 rallies without a hitting error and to me that’s mind boggling. And that’s against a top-25 team. So they gave a great effort tonight.

On calling a time out when LSU was up 6-1 in the first set
“I got criticized in the 2005 National Championship match for calling an early timeout. Sometimes you can tell a team is going to give up points if you don’t stop it. So, my feeling was that this might keep going until they either miss a serve, or we get some lucky play. I could just tell we weren’t really focused and relaxed. So, I was actually going to call a timeout a little earlier, but this is the first time we’ve done that. They usually pull right out of it.”

Outside Hitter Jordan Larson
“It was a little shaky to start out with, but I think we got in a groove again. I thought we came into our own. I thought we played great today. We played a great job out there, and I think you could see that.”

On the high hitting percentage
“I think we were one-on-one a lot. I thought Sydney (Anderson) did a great job distributing the ball and she would set away from the flow, she would set with the flow. I think when you have a setter like that, it’s hard for the middles to read.”

Middle Blocker Kori Cooper
“We’re really good on first contact. When we have our passers putting the ball right on top of Sydney’s (Anderson) head she can do whatever she wants with the ball. I think our passing was really good and it allowed us to be really versatile with our attacking.”