An undefeated season is still intact. The pressures of it continue to mount. And the Nebraska volleyball team is still taking every opponent’s best punch. Night in, night out.

Even so, the Huskers are still ringing up wins in the cash register. Wake up tomorrow, and that’s still going to be the most important takeaway from Wednesday night.

A hard-nosed, fearless Northwestern team – a program the Huskers have dominated historically – came into Lincoln and wasn’t messing around from the start. The Wildcats went to the Devaney Center to play some ball.

And play it they did. They challenged Nebraska point-for-point, moment-for-moment, all night, and the Huskers had to grind away to pull out a 28-26, 24-26, 25-11, 25-20 victory on their home floor.

Let's get to some instant reaction.

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Even after an imperfect win, Nebraska remains so in the left- and right-hand columns. The Huskers remained perfect at 24-0 overall and 15-0 in the Big Ten after it notched its 16th consecutive win over the Wildcats (11-14, 5-10) and moved to 20-1 in the all-time series.

Nebraska volleyball’s 24-game win streak to kick things off in 2023 has vaulted this team to a new level. The 24-0 mark moves the Huskers past the 2006 national championship team for the program’s best start to a season since 2005 as Nebraska began the year 23-0 during that title-winning campaign.

The next milestone for the Huskers to match or surpass? Nebraska’s 28-0 start by the 2005 national runners-up.

John Cook was right, huh?

As you get into these November matches, especially with the ranking and the record attached to Nebraska’s back, each point is magnified, and the margin of error shrinks with each match. Each set.

“The message to the team is each week the stakes get bigger, each point gets a little bit bigger and more important, and the sense of urgency this time of year’s gotta be really strong to max out every point,” Cook said. “That’s what we’re working on.”

The Huskers got a true dogfight on Wednesday night.

You look at the 19-1 mark Nebraska holds over the Wildcats going into the match – and the 15 straight wins – and you know what to expect. You might even pre-write most of your game coverage during the day expecting the program considered the best in America this season to waltz through with a sweep. After all, it was on Nebraska’s home floor three weeks to the day after it had gone into Evanston and bounced out of there quickly with a 25-15, 25-16, 25-21 clean sweep.

But the ‘Cats had some scrap to ‘em.

Northwestern’s volleyball team showcased a lot of the same traits that have defined its football program over the last two decades, including when David Braun’s crew came into Memorial Stadium last month and bruised its way into a one-score game in the fourth quarter before Matt Rhule’s Huskers out-gritted Northwestern en route to a 17-9 win.

The volleyball ‘Cats were tough, they were completely unafraid and they had punch-you-in-the-mouth grittiness on Wednesday. They were clearly overmatched by a wide talent gap, and they had just gotten run off their own floor by this Husker team in a 25-15, 25-16, 25-21 sweep in Evanston three weeks ago.

But it didn’t matter. Northwestern came to Devaney to ball.

And the volleyball ‘Skers had to fight through to stay unblemished.

Merritt Beason was cooking early.

Once again, she was doing it all for the Huskers. Coming off her fourth Big Ten Player of the Week honor, she picked up right where she left off, powering the Huskers with six kills on nine swings, four digs and a .556 hitting percentage. The conference player of the year candidate was coming off a 48-kill performance in wins over Penn State (career-high 27 kills) and Rutgers (21), and she had amassed a .430 hitting percentage over her lasts four matches.

Man, she was locked in from the start, tapping into the All-America caliber level of play she has displayed this season, especially of late, as she racked up eight kills and seven digs by the time Nebraska captured Set 1 and took a 12-6 lead in Set 2.

She seemed to be in that "Merritt Magic Zone" where everything looked aggressive and powerful but smooth and unrushed. I thought we were headed for another version of a Beason-heavy game where the Huskers, essentially, said “OK, captain, take us home.”

In a wild first set, the two programs bounced blow after blow on each other in a set featuring 17 ties and eight lead changes. Northwestern created a bit of space with a three-point lead late, working its way to a 22-19 edge before a combination of a Bekka Allick kill and a Wildcat error forced a Northwestern timeout.

That’s when Beason came alive. She fired a shot in for a tie at 22, then split another laser in between the outstretched arms of two Wildcat blockers for the lead, and she added another one for a 24-23 advantage on a shot in which she reared back and bombed away with some torque in her body.

Beason then sent over a sensational serve for set point, lasering a ball over the net that dove straight toward the ground like a nasty backdoor slider. Somehow, the ‘Cats kept the ball alive, sent it back over, and Beason managed to get her arms on the ball to push it into the air. The ricochet sailed out of bounds, though, and Northwestern tallied the point to keep its Set 1 pulse pumping.

That was the sort of grit Northwestern showed all night. Back to the wall, against the ropes, they made Nebraska knock them out. When the Huskers landed the final blow in the first set on kills by Beason and Allick sandwiched around a Northwestern error, it looked like a 28-26 set win meant Husker fans could take a deep breath.

Northwestern gave Nebraska its biggest, best punch, and I was confident Cook’s crew would put its foot down. Enough messing around, time to step on the gas. That’s how things were pacing as Nebraska took a 12-6 lead in Set 2.

But Northwestern, again, kept coming back for more as the two-headed effort of Julia Sangiacomo (game-high 16 kills) and Averie Hernandez (13 kills) helped the ‘Cats take advantage of 21 Nebraska errors on the night. They also benefitted from Beason not having her typical All-Big Ten caliber games, when it looked like she was about to pour on another one of her explosive star performances. After that 8-kill, 7-dig start over the Huskers' first 40 points of the match, however, she finished with 13 kills on .189 hitting, 10 digs and had six errors.

Northwestern pumped out an 8-2 run to pull the second set to a 14-14 tie after facing the 12-6 deficit. From that point on? You guessed it: The 'Cats made it a dogfight. Again.

The two teams wrestled point for point with five ties and three lead changes, Northwestern took a 19-16 lead and a 7-1 Huskers run made it 23-20. The ‘Cats answered with a 4-0 run and then scored two of the final three points to take it, 26-24.

We saw Nebraska dominate Set 3, pushing ahead to a 12-6 lead (again) and polishing it off with a 13-3 run for a 25-11 win.

In Set 4, Nebraska answered an 8-3 Northwestern start with a 6-1 run to knot it up at 9, and the two again stayed nearly even. But the Huskers kept at least one point of distance the rest of the way after taking a 10-9 lead and eventually escaped, 25-20, for Win No. 24.

Allick, Harper Murray and Ally Batenhorst came through in the clutch for Nebraska, first with Allick and Murray combining for a block to push set point in S1, and Murray polished things off with a kill shot for the 28-26 advantage. Murray also tied it up in S2 with a kill for a 24-24 stalemate en route to finishing with 13 kills and seven digs (plus six errors).

In the dominant S3 win, Batenhorst (three kills) and Allick (two) combined for five of the final six points to send it to what became the decisive fourth, where Allick was dominant. She racked up four kills in the final set, including match point, as she finished with 11 kills on .562 hitting.

Cook will certainly be hammering home that same “margin of error” message to his team over the next three days before taking its home floor again. On paper, the Huskers should cruise to a 27-0 start before the looming Wisconsin rematch in Madison. Nebraska has home bouts with Illinois (13-11, 8-6) on Sunday and Michigan (6-17, 4-10) on Friday, Nov. 17, before the Huskers will travel to Iowa (8-18, 0-14) on Sunday, Nov. 19.

But Northwestern showed Nebraska on Wednesday night that nothing in this final stretch is going to be easy. Taking a punch to the face never is.