Huskers Headed to NCAA Title Match

The Nebraska volleyball team will vie for its sixth NCAA title on Saturday after the 10th-seeded Huskers rallied to upend Pitt 3-1 (16-25, 25-17, 25-20, 25-22) in the NCAA Semifinal at Nationwide Arena that began on Thursday night and stretched into Friday morning. Nebraska (26-7) will face Wisconsin (30-3) in an all-Big Ten National Championship match Saturday night.
 
The Huskers will make their 10th championship final appearance in program history and their first since 2018. Television coverage Saturday begins with a 6:15 pregame show on ESPN2.

Madi Kubik was solid in all phases of the game to lead Nebraska in the semifinal. Kubik finished with a match-high 13 kills and added a career-high-tying three services aces to go along with seven digs and two blocks. Kubik posted her 24th match this season with at least 10 kills.

Kayla Caffey joined Kubik in double-digit kills with 10, and Caffey added four blocks. Lindsay Krause had nine kills on 19 swings and Lauren Stivrins had nine kills on 17 swings with a match-high six blocks. Ally Batenhorst added seven kills. Nicklin Hames registered her 23rd double-double of the year with 45 assists and 13 digs, while Lexi Rodriguez (13) and Keonilei Akana (11) also had double-digit digs.

Nebraska hit .239 in the match, rebounding from a .167 attacking percentage in the first set. The Huskers held Pittsburgh to a .233 attack percentage, the Panthers' lowest mark of the NCAA Tournament. Pitt hit .483 in winning the first set, but NU limited the Panthers to a .163 attack percentage over the final three sets. Nebraska also won the serve-and-pass battle with six aces against only six errors, while Pittsburgh had five aces and 12 errors. The Huskers also out-blocked the Panthers 10-7, but Pitt finished with more digs (56-50).

Leketo Member-Meneh had 13 kills to pace Pitt, which finished its best season in school history with a 30-4 record.

Set 1
Pitt built a 5-1 lead out of the gate, broken up by a Kubik kill. Kubik later sparked a 4-0 run with a kill and two aces, and NU tied it at 7-7 on a Hames/Stivrins stuff. The Panthers responded with a 6-1 spurt to go up 13-8 before an NU timeout.
 
The deficit increased to 16-9 before NU rallied again, using three straight kills between Kubik and Caffey and a Caffey/Krause stop to cut it to 16-13. But Pitt outscored NU 9-3 the rest of the way, closing the set on an ace at 25-16.
 
Pitt had five players with multiple kills in the set, hitting .483 to Nebraska's .167 in the set. Kubik paced NU with four kills to go with her two aces.
 
Set 2
The Huskers flipped the script to open set two, jumping ahead 3-1 with a Kubik kill and another Caffey/Krause block on Member-Meneh. Kubik had had three kills in the first eight rallies, and she added an ace to stretch the lead to 7-5.
 
NU muscled out to a 14-9 advantage by Pitt's first timeout behind kills from Kubik and Krause and a Stivrins solo stop. Stivrins added a kill on her signature slide out of the timeout, and she and Kubik teamed up to block Chinaza Ndee to make it 16-9. After another block by the duo, Pitt called for another timeout trailing NU 18-11.
 
The Huskers held steady and assumed their largest lead by 23-15 after a pair of Pitt attack errors, but the Panthers took the next two points on kills to prompt an NU timeout. A Krause kill brought it to set point, and an errant Pitt swing finished it off, 25-17, as Nebraska evened the match at one apiece.
 
Kubik had a team-leading eight kills with three aces through the first two sets, and Stivrins had three kills and four blocks. NU had a 4-2 blocking advantage in the second set and hit .440 while holding Pitt to .161.
 
Nebraska had 11 kills on its first 17 swings of the set with just one error.
 
Set 3
Down 4-3, Nebraska turned it around to a 7-5 lead. Pitt regained the advantage at 8-7 before a Kubik kill from the back row, coupled with a Caffey/Hames block put it back in NU's favor. The score locked five times up to 14-14 before a kill from Stivrins prior to the media timeout. The 13th tie of the set at 17-17 after two errors brought on a Husker timeout.
 
NU stormed ahead with a late 6-0 run with Stivrins at the service line, using a Batenhorst kill and a Stivrins ace go to up 19-18 as Pitt called for a timeout. A kill and a block by Caffey, plus a backrow kill by Stivrins and a Pitt attack error pushed it to 23-18. After a Batenhorst swing for set point, Krause finished it off two rallies later with a kill to seal the 25-20 win.
 
Set 4
Kills by Caffey and Kubik plus a Kenzie Knuckles ace spotted NU a quick 3-0 lead. The Huskers pushed it to 9-5 with another three-point run and continued to hold Pitt at bay by at least three. With NU up 18-14, Pitt took a timeout and got the next three back. Nebraska clung to a 19-18 lead and relinquished it for the first time when Pitt tied it at 20-all on back-to-back kills from Serena Gray and Member-Meneh.
 
A Krause/Stivrins block followed by a Pitt attack error put NU out front again, 22-20. A service error gave a point back to the Panthers before Stivrins put down back-to-back kills to give Nebraska its first match point. After a Pitt point, Stivrins and Hames teammed up for a stuff to send NU to the National Championship match.
 
Up Next
Nebraska and Wisconsin will meet in the NCAA Championship Final on Saturday, Dec. 18, with first serve set for 6:15 p.m. CT from Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. The match will be televised on ESPN2 and carried on Huskers Radio Network with John Baylor and Lauren Cook West on the call.
 
Pinnacle Bank Arena will welcome fans for an NCAA Volleyball Championship watch party Saturday evening. Admission to the event is free, and doors at PBA will open at 5:30 p.m. The championship match begins at 6:30 p.m. CT on ESPN2.
 
Lower bowl seating will be open for fans in the arena. A limited concessions menu including food items, soft drinks, beer and cocktails will be available for purchase.

POV: @LaurenStivrins & @HamesNicklin calling game pic.twitter.com/jpNOzuhcyg

— Husker Volleyball (@Huskervball) December 17, 2021

Nebraska Post-Match Notes

• With the win, Nebraska will face Wisconsin in Saturday's NCAA Final, a rematch of the 2000 national championship match, won by Nebraska in five sets over the Badgers in the final season of sideout scoring in college volleyball.
• Nebraska has never previously faced a conference peer in the national title match.
• Saturday's national championship match will be the first to pit two Big Ten teams against each other since Penn State and Wisconsin met in the 2013 NCAA Final.
• NU advanced to the NCAA Final for the 10th time in program history and for the fourth time in the past seven seasons.
• The Huskers' 10 appearances in the NCAA Final tie Penn State for the second-most finals appearances in NCAA history. (Stanford's 17 appearances are the NCAA record.)
• Nebraska previously appeared in the NCAA Final in 1986, 1989, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2006, 2015, 2017 and 2018, winning the national championship in 1995, 2000, 2006, 2015 and 2017.
• The Huskers will go for their sixth overall national title and third in seven seasons on Saturday.
• Nebraska advanced to the NCAA Final as the No. 10 seed. The Huskers are the fourth-lowest seed to advance to the National Championship match since the NCAA began seeding teams in 2000. Stanford (No. 11 seed in 2011), Wisconsin (No. 12 seed in 2013) and BYU (unseeded in 2014) made the NCAA Final as lower seeds than this year's Nebraska team.
• Nebraska looks to become only the second double-digit seed to win the national championship since the NCAA began seeding teams with the 2000 NCAA Tournament. Stanford won the 2004 NCAA title as the No. 11 seed and is the lowest seed to win the national championship.
• With the win, Nebraska improved to 123-34 all-time in the NCAA Tournament. The Huskers rank second in NCAA history in postseason wins and winning percentage (.783).
• Nebraska improved to 10-6 all-time in NCAA Semifinal matches, including a 7-3 record under John Cook.
• Cook has taken a Husker team to the NCAA Final for the seventh time in his 22 seasons. Cook's seven finals appearances rank in a tie for fourth in NCAA history and are second in the 64-team NCAA Tournament era (since 1998), one behind Penn State's Russ Rose.
• Cook improved to 90-22 in his NCAA Tournament career. With the win over Pittsburgh, Cook became only the third coach in NCAA history to win 90 NCAA Tournament matches.
• Cook is now 82-17 in the NCAA Tournament as Nebraska's head coach. His .828 postseason winning percentage at Nebraska is the top mark in NCAA history among any coach with at least 20 NCAA Tournament matches at one school.
• Saturday's NCAA Final will mark Cook's 100th NCAA Tournament match as Nebraska's head coach.
• After Pitt hit .483 in winning the first set, Nebraska limited the Panthers to a .163 attack percentage over the final three sets. Conversely, NU hit .167 in the first set and .260 over the final three sets.
• Nebraska had six aces in the match. The Huskers have 33 aces in five NCAA Tournament matches this season, the most of any team in the tournament.
• Nicklin Hames had 45 assists in tonight's match. She has 704 assists in her NCAA Tournament career, becoming Nebraska's all-time leader in postseason assists. The previous record was 699 assists by Kelly Hunter, Nebraska's current volunteer coach.
• Madi Kubik had three aces in the match, her most this season and a total that tied her career high, the third time in her career she has served up three aces.
• Lauren Stivrins played in the 23rd NCAA Tournament match of her Husker career tonight, tying the Nebraska record for career postseason matches played.
• Stivrins had a match-high six blocks in tonight's match. With her six blocks, Stivrins increased her career total to 558 blocks, moving past Virginia Stahr (555) and into a tie sixth place on Nebraska's all-time list with Karen Dahlgren.
• Lexi Rodriguez had 13 digs in tonight's match, increasing her season total to 511 digs. Rodriguez is the fifth Husker to have 500 digs in a season and the only freshman to reach the mark.
• Keonilei Akana had one service ace against Pittsburgh. Akana has 41 aces this season, tied for the seventh-highest single-season total in school history along with Jordan Larson and Annika Albrecht.