All good things must come to an end. Nebraska volleyball lost its first match of the season to No. 5 Wisconsin on Saturday in three sets. Still, the Huskers’ 27-match win streak is something to be proud of as they were the last undefeated team in the country.
While the season is still young and there are many things to look forward to for Nebraska, Friday was an eye-opener.
The Badgers were all over the Huskers with a hitting percentage of .357. This is the highest opponent hit percentage Nebraska has given up this entire season.
The Huskers only hit at a .243 clip after entering the day with a .286 hitting percentage.
Nebraska had a very strong start to the first set, at one point being up by six points. As the set went on, the Huskers started to let errors take over, including service errors that completely changed the nature of the set. Nebraska was able to hold a two to four-point lead for most of the set until it turned in Wisconsin’s favor.
The Badgers crawled back into the set and tied it at 18 after scoring back-to-back kills. Costly errors dominated Nebraska and it made for a very challenging set. This translated into the rest of the day as the Huskers lost the first set 22-25.
After coming off a 10-4 scoring run, Wisconsin continued the pressure into the second set. Nebraska was down 1-3 before coming alive and tying it at three points. Junior outside hitter Ally Batenhorst scored back-to-back kills giving the Huskers a 5-4 lead in the set.
Nebraska continued their newly found confidence and went on a three-point run, increasing its lead to 7-4 until a service ace gave the momentum back to the Badgers. Wisconsin got the lead back as errors continued to plague the Huskers
With the second set tied at 17, the Badgers scored their fourth ace of the match and went on a four-point run. Nebraska quickly answered back and went on a five-point run of their own. Wisconsin answered right back and went on another four-point run.
The Badgers went up 24-23 late in the set but the Huskers tied it up at 24 all. Nebraska had a chance to win the set when up 25-24, but couldn’t capitalize. Nebraska’s ultimately led to Wisconsin taking the second set 28-26.
The start of set three saw both teams go back and forth scoring kills with the Badgers taking the lead. The Huskers then scored a service ace before the match went further downhill, prompting Nebraska to take a time-out with the Badgers holding a four-point lead.
Junior outside hitter Merritt Beason scored a kill for Nebraska, cutting the lead to three points. Both teams traded service errors quickly after that.
After keeping it close, Wisconsin then exploded on a 6-0 scoring run, nearly putting the set and match out of reach for the Huskers.
With the match in favor of the Badgers 21-12, Nebraska found no way to combat the highly accurate blocks and kills Wisconsin presented. The Huskers, however, did not give up. Nebraska was able to score some points at the end making the Badgers fight for their win, but ultimately came up short and lost the set 25-16.
Wisconsin got revenge from the two teams’ first matchup, sweeping the Huskers in three straight sets at home for the second year in a row.
While Nebraska has already locked in the Big Ten regular season championship, this did not look like the team that went on a 27-match win streak.
The Huskers look to close out their regular season in Minneapolis, Minnesota where they take on the Golden Gophers on Saturday, Nov. 25.