Three takes: Nebraska volleyball bounces back to beat No. 25 Illinois 3-0

No. 9 Nebraska volleyball bounced back alright.

After losing to Wisconsin and Minnesota last week, the Huskers (17-5, 11-2) battled to a 3-0 sweep over No. 25 Illinois 25-20, 25-20, 25-21.

Nebraska got lots of practice in bouncing back as they had to rally to win the second and third set.

Here are my three takes from Nebraska sweeping Illinois for the second time this season:

All three matches started with a scoring run by one team. Nebraska started the first set with three consecutive points but Illinois began both sets two and three with a 3-0 and a 4-0 run.

After Nebraska waited tie it up in both sets until the 18th and 20th, they didn't relinquish the lead.

Nebraska went on a 10-2 scoring run to win the second set and an 8-1 scoring run to win the third set and the match. Husker Head Coach John Cook said a big part of both those runs was the servers at the line stressing Illinois.

"I felt like every time we needed to get a run somebody went back there and got us three, four points," Cook said. "We were down the last few games and they got us back in it with those runs."

In set two, setter Nicklin Hames and defensive specialist Kenzie Knuckles each had four consecutive serves. Knuckles had two aces along with her six digs and one kill on the match.

Middle blocker Lauren Stivrins, in her first game serving all season, sparked the run to win the match with two aces in seven serves. Stivrins had seven kills and four blocks.

"I thought Lauren Stivrins did a great job at the end there," Cook said. "She literally blew that third game open."

Nebraska struggled to serve against Minnesota with 12 service errors. They had three service errors against Illinois and six aces.

The Husker got some of their serving mojo back against a good defensive team before facing No. 7 Ohio State on Saturday.

Left-side outside hitter Lexi Sun started her first match since Louisville on Sept. 18.

The senior saw her position as the No. 1 left-side hitter taken by Madi Kubik and then watched freshman Ally Batenhorst start every Big Ten game in the No. 2 position.

Sun came in for Batenhorst in the second set of the Minnesota match and played the remaining four sets. She contributed 12 kills and hit .116.

"She's finally been turning it up in practice," Cook said. "We got her some time last match and I just like her demeanor right now. She's on a mission and I was really expecting her to play well."

Against Illinois, Sun tied for a team-high 11 kills with one error and hit a team-high .303. She also had a big-time solo block in the third set to boost Nebraska up 20-20 and give NU its first lead of the set.

Sun was a hitting bright spot on a team that struggled offensive and hit .206 on the match and .133 in the second set.

In set two, Sun had three kills to score Nebraska's 18th, 19th and 20th points and helped spark the big run at the end.

Nebraska has been desperately looking for another left-side hitter that can impact a match next to Kubik, Sun could be it if she continues to play well and battle against the difficult upcoming opponents.

Cook said on BTN after the match that Nebraska focused on playing hard after 20 points and finishing matches.

"We were in some really close games," Cook said. "We challenged them, we got to play better after 20 points. And so we worked on it. We tried to create a mindset. We got to turn it up at 20 points and they did that in all three games tonight."

Nebraska definitely did that on Thursday as they came back to win two sets that way.

Cook is right about them finding themselves in close game situations. The Huskers lost two games by two points against Wisconsin and won another two by two points against Minnesota.

However, against Illinois, Nebraska was down and found a way to claw back to win. It's going to be a lot harder to fight back and stage a big scoring run against teams like Ohio State, Purdue, Wisconsin and Penn State.

The Huskers are still sorting through what works best and are changing around the lineup. For example, Sun started against Illinois and Stivrins served instead of Anni Evans, who has been the serving sub for the Big Ten season.

While both of those things worked against Illinois, it'll be interesting to see if they can continue to improve against Ohio State on Saturday.