Nebraska volleyball head coach John Cook said his goal for Wednesday's top-20 matchup was for the Huskers to play "relentless every point" and they did just that. Well, outside of a few points Cook said he would want back.
No. 3 Nebraska swept No. 19 Creighton on the road in an in-state battle at the CHI Health Center. An audience of 11,279 watched as NU beat the Bluejays 25-14, 25-22, 25-16.
Here are my three takes from the Huskers' first top-25 matchup and win:
Nebraska rose to the occasion
The feeling of the magnitude of the match was palpable in the CHI Health Center as two in-state rivals went head-to-head in a top-20 matchup.
Cook said there were nerves on Nebraska's side and he guessed also some on Creighton's side of the net. For nine Huskers, this was their biggest match audience-wise and Cook guessed all but a few of Creighton's players hadn't played in front of an audience as large as the one present on Wednesday.
Even with the expectations looming, Nebraska rose to the occasion and played lock-down defense with forceful kills and minimal errors.
NU held Creighton, who had been hitting .288 on the season until Wednesday, to .053 including a -.026 hitting percentage in the final set.
Outside hitter Lexi Sun said when Nebraska was down early in the first set that her team kept at Creighton to create separation.
"I think defensively with our block and our defense, I think we applied the pressure on them to start and I think that from then we just continued to keep at it, and especially with our servers and tried to get them discouraged."
Sun, who had a match-high 11 kills, four digs and two blocks, had a pancake to keep a rally alive that she eventually earned a kill on -- giving NU a 7-6 lead in the first set. They never trailed or even tied with CU in the first set after that point.
In Nebraska's most important match of the season thus far, they put their foot on the pedal and didn't look back for a single moment.
Nebraska's "four excellent defensive players"
The Huskers defensive specialist shined with 69 digs in a match with very low hitting percentages. Cook said this is the first time he can remember in his career that he has had this many "exceptional" defensive players.
Libero Lexi Rodriguez had 17 digs and three assists. Defensive specialist Kenzie Knuckles added eight digs, one assist and went two for two on kills from the back row. Keonilei Akana had 13 digs.
Setter Nicklin Hames is the fourth "exceptional" defensive player Cook referred to. She had 12 digs on Wednesday.
Creighton had 131 attack attempts and only 28 kills. That is a lot of balls that aren't hitting the ground and those four players kept them off the court at what felt like a relentless level.
"We tell our team this, when you play great defense it's really hard to prepare for that," Cook said. "If you're going against a great defensive team, there's really not much you can do. I mean, you keep swinging, you try to find more ways, but if they're relentless on you, it makes it really hard.
"That's why I always say you win championships with defense."
Minimal Errors
At times, Nebraska has been prone to errors, penalties and miscommunication however, there was very little of that against Creighton.
The Huskers had 18 hitting errors as a team versus the Bluejays and hit .177 as a whole. Those aren't great numbers, especially with the number of digs NU was getting. Cook said converting digs to kills is Nebraska's next project.
However, there were seemingly very few violations of any kind. For a team that has been ridden with mistakes occasionally, that is a win within a win.
Cook said he was happy with only five errors but five aces at the service line.
"Keonilei and Nicklin and Lexi Rodriguez, I thought put a ton of pressure on them and at times our other servers did too."
Akana had three service aces and led a 7-0 NU scoring run at the service line in the second set to help Nebraska fly past the Bluejays.
Nebraska's serving success is even more impressive when you look at the skills of Creighton.
"That's the best passing team since the start of the season of anybody we played," he said. "Their numbers were astronomical from what we're used to seeing coming into this match.
"And five aces, five errors and pressure like that, our players took the challenge and really stepped up."
