Nebraska's Defense Shuts Down UCLA in Another Big Ten Sweep

Marianna Singletary tried a quick attack first, but Andi Jackson and Teraya Sigler turned it back. 

Then Maggie Li attempted a swing from the left pin, but Jackson and Bergen Reilly denied her. Setter Kate Duffy lined up a shot, but Jackson and Sigler rejected it. Li tried to control the ball, but her tip went out of bounds over the antennae, giving Nebraska the point on the block. 

The point gave the Huskers a 14-4 second-set lead and capped a 9-1 run. The play also highlighted UCLA’s struggles against NU’s floor defense. 

The top-ranked Huskers smothered UCLA with nine blocks and 48 digs, its third-highest total in a sweep this season. The Bruins were held to a season-low of 25 kills on a .036 hitting percentage as Nebraska earned a 25-19, 25-11, 25-16 sweep Thursday evening at John Cook Arena. 

Jackson finished with a team-high six blocks, while senior defensive specialist Laney Choboy led the defense with 13 digs. Olivia Mauch added 10 digs while Reilly matched her with 10 digs and 39 assists for her 48th career double-double. 

“We’re really well prepared and dialed in, and great at communicating tonight,” NU coach Dani Busboom Kelly said. “That was a goal of ours to be all over them from the start. Then it just made the rest of the game feel easy when we were so dialed in on the scout.”

While the defense was locked in from the start, the Huskers’ offense took a bit to get going. Nebraska (20-0, 9-0) committed five hitting errors on its first 16 swings and had six miscues before the first-set media timeout. 

However, NU missed on only five attacks for the rest of the match, finishing with a .380 hitting percentage. Jackson led the Huskers with 11 kills on a .625 hitting percentage. 

Virginia Adriano also had a strong performance, finishing with 10 kills at a .333 clip. She also converted several kills late in the first and third sets. The sophomore opposite entered the match with just nine kills in the red zone (once NU gets to 20 points), but added four to that total tonight. 

Adriano said she talked with Reilly earlier on Thursday and was grateful she still got opportunities late in a set even after making a few errors. 

“I know that it might be obvious that the setter still trusts you, even if you’re making errors, but it isn’t,” she said. “There’s a lot of mental stuff behind it, so I was thankful that she kept trusting me and kept setting me, and I regained my confidence ball after ball.”

In addition, half of Adriano’s kills came out of system, with Mauch assisting on four of them and outside hitter Skyler Pierce on the other. Busboom Kelly said if Adriano can get kills in big moments out-of-system, it raises the potential of the team. 

Adriano said she finds it easier to terminate an attack with a high, slow bump set. Sometimes, when it comes quicker, she gets greedy and tries to hit it hard off a block. 

“If it’s a high ball, I find it easier to hit and get a kill,” Adriano said. “One of my strengths is hitting the ball high because obviously my height helps with that, but I like it more sometimes.”

After pulling away late in the first set, Nebraska gave UCLA little hope in the final two sets. NU sprinted out to an 11-3 lead in the second set and went up 10-3 in the third after back-to-back blocks by Manaia Ogbechie and Bergen Reilly. 

Jackson said the suffocating defense came from their work earlier this week and how dialed they were on the scouting plan. She said their goal was to be fast with their hands at the net and move intentionally to make everything difficult for the Bruins (15-5, 6-3). 

“Everyone was just mentally locked in on who’s hitting what shot they want to hit,” she said. “After the first 10 points, we adjusted and took that away from them, and made it really hard for them to score.” 

Murray added nine kills for the Huskers while Sigler put up eight kills on 17 errorless swings. 

Maggie Li needed 35 swings to record a team-high seven kills for UCLA. The Bruins middle blockers (Singletary and Brooke Harwood) entered the match hitting above .330 on the season, but combined for seven kills and six errors on 24 attacks. 

“We were so good from the start, so we didn’t let any of them get going or get hot, and we were making them work really, really hard for every kill they got,” Busboom Kelly said. “As a player, that gets frustrating and tiring mentally and physically, so we just did a good job of taking the wind out of them from the beginning.”

The Huskers return to action against USC on Saturday night. The Trojans fended off Iowa in five sets on Thursday night, winning the final frame 15-9. USC closed out the match with a 9-0 run, with Omaha Skutt graduate Paisley Douglas at the service line.