Volleyball: #2 Nebraska vs. Long Beach State Preview

#2 Nebraska (6-0) vs Long Beach State (4-1)
When: Saturday, September 10, 2022, 3:00 pm (CT)
Where: Devaney Center
Video: BTN+
Radio: Husker Radio Network

Nebraska fans will see a couple familiar faces on the Long Beach State court and bench this afternoon. Former Husker middle, Callie Schwarzenbach is a starting for the Beach and former associate head coach for Nebraska, Tyler Hildebrand is the Head Coach. They are 4-1 in the season, with their lone loss to ranked Oregon, and boasting wins over Oregon State, Portland State, Boise State and Notre Dame. Maybe not a murderer’s row, but these are some good wins.

Of note: Kim Hill is an assistant coach for LB. She is fresh off her gold medal performance with the US Women’s volleyball team as an outside hitter alongside Jordan Larson. Hill played her college ball at Pepperdine and was a member of the national team from 2013 to 2021. Great addition to the coaching staff.

LB played an exhibition match against Pepperdine just before Pepperdine traveled to Nebraska. In the exhibition, both teams took 2 sets and that is how it ended. Nebraska beat Pepperdine in the three sets two weeks ago. Speaking of Pepperdine, they were ranked #24 this week after beating Baylor the week before. Just yesterday they beat #13 Washington in four sets. They will move up in the rankings after that win. So, based on their performance against a pretty good Pepperdine squad, LB shouldn’t be taken lightly!

Back to the Nebraska match. Long Beach will set outside hitter Morgan Chacon most of the time. That means, in this situation, about 70% of the time…which is a lot. She is a 5’11’’ outside hitter transfer from Florida State. She will hit off hands and is very quick. Also interesting, her younger sister, Savana Chacon, plays for the LB too. The Sophomore, Savana, transferred from Purdue and plays defense.

Schwarzenbach is active in the middle and will get set 5-6 times per set. She is averaging 1.48 kills per set and hitting .406 for the season. Schwarzenbach is a nice addition to this team and made them better.

Long Beach State plays a freshman setter from Illinois, Zayna Meyer. She was strongly recruited because she is very skilled but is working through the freshman learning curve of setting at a high level in division I volleyball.

This is a competitive match between LBS and Nebraska where the Huskers work to improve blocking by eliminating errors with hands pressed over the net. Nebraska showed vulnerability on defense by letting balls drop in the middle of the court against Creighton. They will look to improve floor defense by pursuing those balls and clearly defining who is responsible for each zone on the floor.

GBR!