Three takes: No. 11 Nebraska Volleyball manages to beat Indiana 3-1

While Nebraska's victory over Indiana (9-19, 3-13)will go down in the win column, the match presented more questions than answers.

The Huskers (19-6, 13-3) came out slow and lost the first set 23-25 after a late comeback but won the following three sets 25-18, 25-22, 25-16. Nebraska got out to a big lead in the fourth set, 24-10 but allowed Indiana to hang around for seven match points, four of which were errors on the Huskers.

Here are my three takes from the Huskers match against Indiana:

Nebraska has started the last two games flat with miscommunication and a seeming inability to find a way to spring back to life within a few points. Not just going through the motions until it is too late to come back.

While there was an outside factor that impacted the Huskers' start against Maryland, it took them a while to shake it off and get back to work. However, at Indiana, Nebraska had no rhythm and had many errors until Indiana made it to 20 points in the first set and the Huskers decided to kick it into gear.

Nebraska scored 11 of the remaining six points and took the Hoosiers to five match points in the first set but lost 23-25. Nebraska was down by six points at one point in set three until Anni Evans at the service line and outside hitter Lexi Sun of the left pin lead a 4-0 scoring run.

Head Coach John Cook said "it's a mindset" that the Huskers need to work on.

The Huskers also struggled to finish set four and the match and allowed seven match points with four errors during that stretch.

In order to beat ranked teams and teams in general, Nebraska can't wait around until the set is in crisis to get out of a funk. They need to fight point for point and eliminate big scoring runs. Teams like Penn State, Wisconsin and Purdue will take advantage of miscommunications.

Outside hitter Madi Kubik, who has typically been Nebraska's one constant on offense, hit .037 against Indiana and .098 in the previous game versus Maryland. While Kubik had nine kills and eight errors, her teammates stepped up.

Freshman Ally Batenhorst subbed in for Kubik in the second set and played throughout the remaining of the match. However, Kubik still played but Cook switched Kubik and Batenhorst in the rotations.

Batenhorst had 11 kills, three errors and hit .333. She hasn't played in Nebraska's last three matches as Lexi Sun started those games.

Against Indiana, Sun had 11 kills, two errors and hit .310. On the right side, Lindsay Krause also had 11 kills but had seven errors and hit .125. In the second set, Krause had six kills, two errors and a .400 clip.

Nebraska hasn't had all three of their outside hitters have a good game at the same time. There is always at least one player who hits negative or close to it. That could be a product of having two freshman hitters but Kubik, a junior, doesn't have the inexperienced excuse.

If the Huskers knock off Penn State next Friday, they need to find a while to get Kubik going and give her support at all positions.

Nebraska had five team blocks after getting 11 against Maryland, out blocking the best blocking team in the Big Ten.

Middle blocker Lauren Stivrins led the team with three block assists along with her 10 kills. Stivrins had seven block assists against Maryland.

Four Huskers had three block assists in the last match: Kayla Caffey, Whitney Lauenstein, Sun and Krause. Krause had two block assists and one solo block against Indiana.

While Caffey started in Bloomington, Callie Schwarzenbach played for her in the second set after Caffey wasn't matching up well with Indiana's middle blocker Kaley Rammelsburg, who had a perfect four kills in set one

Outside of Stivrins, the second middle blocker position didn't put much pressure on Indiana's hitters and they do a good job of hitting around them.

Good thing the floor defense and libero Lexi Rodriguez kept up their end of the bargain with 79 digs. Rodriguez had 22 digs for the second match in a row.

Defensive specialist Kenzie Knuckles had 12 digs. Setter Nicklin Hames and DS Keonilei Akana each had 10 digs.