Huskers Sweep Kansas State

Lincoln ? Ninth-ranked Nebraska relied on a balanced attack to sweep Kansas State, 25-13, 25-19, 25-18, Saturday night at the NU Coliseum.
The Huskers hit .319 ?its best performance in conference action ? while all five attackers recorded between seven and 10 kills. All-American Sydney Anderson dished out 35 assists and helped four players ? Tara Mueller, Hannah Werth, Brooke Delano and Kori Cooper - hit over .350 on the night.

Cooper and Delano combined for 14 kills on .444 hitting and nine blocks, as Cooper totaled seven kills on a match-high .462 hitting, while Delano also had seven kills on .429 hitting and five blocks. Mueller and Werth were just as efficient on the outside with 10 kills apiece in helping the Huskers to their eighth straight sweep.

While the Huskers, who have won three straight matches to improve to 12-4 overall and 5-2 in the Big 12, relied on offensive balance, it was Nebraska’s serving game which gave Kansas State (6-10, 0-6 Big 12) fits. NU racked up eight aces, including a career-best four from Gina Mancuso, and had a season-low two service errors. Nebraska also totaled 12 blocks, including six by Lindsey Licht, to hold KSU to .170 hitting.

In the opening set, Cooper got the Huskers untracked for a 25-13 win. The senior All-American had six of her 10 kills on .857 hitting, as Nebraska hit .438 as a team. With the scored tied at seven, Cooper took over, recording four kills and a block in an 8-1 Huskers run, as Nebraska took a commanding 15-8 lead. KSU pulled to within 15-10 after a Vanessa Murray kill, but Cooper and Mueller combined for three straight kills as part of a 5-1 run to put the set out of reach at 20-11.

In the second set, the Huskers used the power of Werth and a strong block to stymie the Wildcats, 25-19. Werth had six of her 10 kills in the set on .500 hitting kills, while Lindsey Licht and Cooper added three blocks apiece, as Nebraska totaled six stuffs in the set. Trailing 12-11, the Huskers took control with the serving of Delano, winning seven of the next eight rallies to take an 18-13 lead on a Werth kill. K-State pulled to within 20-17, but the Huskers closed the set on a 5-2 spurt as Delano added two kills, while Anderson and Allison McNeal combined on a block at set point to sent the Huskers to the locker room up 2-0.

Mueller was the offensive star in the finale, delivering six kills as Nebraska completed the sweep with a 25-18 win. Mancuso shined at the service line with three aces and keyed the decisive run for the Big Red. Early on, the Huskers had control, winning seven of the first nine rallies and building a 10-4 lead after Mancuso’s first ace of the set. Kansas State would regroup, using a 10-4 sport to tie the score at 14 after a Husker error. NU then took over, as Licht’s kill and block ignited an 8-1 run to put the match away, extending the lead to 22-15 after two straight aces from Mancuso. KSU got to within 23-18, but a service error and a Werth kill completed the Huskers’ second straight sweep.

Murray led Kansas State with 11 kills, while no other Wildcat had more than eight in the night.

The Huskers will embark on a two match road trip on Wednesday, Oct. 14, when they travel to Baylor. First serve is set for 7 p.m. and the match will be carried on selected Husker Sports Network stations and on Huskers.com. The match will not be available on HuskersNside. 

Coach John Cook
On improvements he has seen during this game
“I think the great thing is that we’re getting better, so it feels good to see improvement. If they’re happy, it certainly makes their coaches happy, so that’s a good thing. I thought we were really consistent tonight. Again, the key to volleyball is reducing your errors. If you total up our total errors, I think we had 19 errors tonight. When we played Texas, we were close to 60. That’s the key to volleyball, can you play at a high level and be low error?”

On if the team is coming together
“I think this was a good week for us to build momentum because we have now some very tough matches coming up. This was a good week for us to regroup and get confidence. We had two nice efforts and now we’re going to have to find a way to take it up a notch.”

On Gina Mancuso’s serving
“It’s huge for Gina to have a match like that. We need her. She has the best serve on the team. We need her to believe that and go out there and do that every time. Tonight she is a great example for that. Our passers tell us every day that she has the toughest serve to pass and that’s why we have her in there serving. It’s a big weapon for us. If you can get four aces in Big 12 volleyball that’s a heck of a night serving. That’s huge. Our serving numbers are where they were last year. If we could reduce our errors, they would go way up. Tonight was an example of that. Low serving errors, so our serving will be off the charts tonight.”

Setter Sydney Anderson
On tonight’s win
“I’m not going to say our best, because we could do better, but we were comfortable, we had fun, things were flowing, people were doing their jobs. If we just let us play and if we just play, we are a great team. I think that’s what we did tonight.”

On finding a rhythm while setting
“It’s just new people, new personalities and new chemistry. I have to find their rhythm, how they like to be set. It all comes down to new people. Just getting comfortable and going from there.”

On Nebraska’s serving and passing tonight
“Any coach will agree with me and Coach Cook says it all of the time. Any game comes down to serving or passing. As you saw tonight, we played amazing. If you look at our serving and our passing, I’m sure they’re high numbers.”

Middle Blocker Kori Cooper
On tonight’s win
“I think tonight we really took a step forward. We’ve been doing little things off the court to build team cohesiveness. We knew it would take time and that’s what we kept saying. I think you can really start to see that. Like I said, we took a big step forward tonight and hopefully we can keep taking small steps.”

On playing with younger players
“I think one thing that we really try to work on is figuring out what each player needs on the court and making sure we make those needs for them. Once we realize that and understand that, we can really move forward as a team.”

On playing Nebraska volleyball
“I think it’s next-play mentality ? going out there with a sense of urgency, but also a sense of joy. Just going out there and cherishing every moment, even if things aren’t going the way we want. For example, in game two we kind of got in a little slump out there but we kept playing Nebraska volleyball and had a sense of urgency and had next-play mentality. I think we were able to pull ourselves out of that. I think that is something that’s very reminiscent of what we’ve seen in the past years.”