Volleyball Scrimmage Recap

Husker volleyball is back! Red and white scrimmage tonight. The red team was the prospective starters while white was the non-starters, plus Kelly Hunter and a practice men’s player. Lexi Sun was unavailable tonight because of contract tracing, although she is feeling fine. The starting team, in red, included Lauren Stivrins (MB), Nicklin Hames (S), Madi Kubik (OH), Kenzie Knuckles (L), Jazz Sweet (RS), Keonilei Akana (defense) Kalynn Meyers (MB) and Riley Zuhn (OH).

If this is the starting line up when games begin next, we’ll see a team that looks a lot like last year. The big change is Meyers in the middle, where Schwarzenbach had been last year. There are four middles (Stivrins, Meyers, Schwarzenbach and Kayla Caffey) on the roster, and Zuhn can play middle too. Competition is great for improving players, and there’s a lot of competition for the staring MB.

Meyers was quick both in blocking and hitting. A good start for the true freshman from Superior, NE.

Kayla Caffey was on the non-starters side but she put on a show. She is quick off the ground, has a fast arm swing and the ball gets to the ground fast. The Mizzou transfer gave the starters trouble some trouble.

Zuhn, played the outside hitter position where Sun would have been. I imagine Zuhn could have played for Sweet as well. She is a very versatile player that I expect to see her a lot more this season.

Akana played defense for the starting side. She is a freshman from Hawaii. She served tough, passed well on serve receive and defense but what we need to talk about is her hitting out of the backrow. She was a hitter in high school, and tonight she attacked very well. She is a threat and someone other teams would have to pay attention to in their scouting reports, even though she is only going to play backrow this year.

From here the team will focus on academic finals. They will practice for three more weeks before they take a winter break. When they come back for the winter break they will have another three week training period before the proposed season would begin on January 22nd.

Nebraska is talented. This year’s team is notable for it’s depth, so there will be some great competition at each position, and lucky us, we get to watch it all unfold!