Nebraska announces Volleyball Day coming to Memorial Stadium
The Nebraska volleyball team will face UNO on Wednesday, August 30 at 7 p.m. inside Memorial Stadium, the university announced Friday afternoon.
Prior to the match, the University of Nebraska-Kearney will take on Wayne State College in an exhibition at 4:30 p.m. with gates set to open at 3:30 p.m. Following the match between the Huskers and Mavericks there will be a concert featuring a national recording artist that will be announced at a later date. Tickets will go on sale on Tuesday, April 25. The Nebraska-UNO match will be carried on the Big Ten Network while streaming on the FOX Sports app.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen will implement a special proclamation to celebrate the sport of volleyball in Nebraska.
"Title IX has created a monster - the North Star of volleyball in the state of Nebraska," Athletic Director Trev Alberts said. "What a great way to celebrate it by bringing everybody together. We've always believed that athletics at the University of Nebraska can be used to being people together. We're really proud to have schools from all across the state come to Memorial Stadium to celebrate the progress of Title IX and a women's sport like volleyball. I do need to acknowledge that we hope that one of the outcomes of celebrating our volleyball programs in the state of Nebraska is that we once and for all establish the all-time attendance record for volleyball nationally."
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It's been long rumored of an event of this magnitude. On Sept. 7, 2022, Nebraska traveled to face off against Creighton at the CHI Health Center in front of a NCAA regular-season record crowd of 15,797. Not even two weeks later Wisconsin volleyball eclipsed that mark with a 16,833 sell out of Kohl Center to see Florida upset the Badgers. Both Cook and Nebraska Athletic Director Trev Alberts echoed similar comments of taking the record back during each of their weekly radio shows during the fall. And now, they've turned that talk into reality.
"These guys dream big," head coach John Cook said. "One thing I saw was Trev is a competitor. He doesn't want to be second place to anybody. We're going after it and it's pretty cool...it's pretty surreal that this is all happening, but we are dreaming big. I think it's going to be a really special day."
However, this event will aim to break the all-time record of 18,755 spectators that saw Wisconsin win its first ever national title with a five-set victory over Nebraska at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio.
The Huskers are coming off a disappointing season for their standards, losing in five sets to Oregon in the Sweet 16 in Louisville back in December of last year. Cook's squad went through a big transition over the off season seeing veteran leaders in Madi Kubik, Kenzie Knuckles and Kaitlyn Hord all depart the program. That also includes the departure of sophomore opposite Whitney Lauenstein who decided to step away from the sport in January. As a result, Nebraska welcomes in Florida transfer Merritt Beason who spent the first two seasons as a Gator where she was a team captain and led the team in kills per set and aces during the 2022 season. Beason is joined by the 2023 No. 1 ranked recruiting class with five new freshman joining the program.