Another Nebraska Volleyball Sweep, Rutgers Falls Victim to the Big Red Machine

Nebraska 3 vs Rutgers 0 - 25-22, 25-15, 25-12

Nebraska looked sharp against Rutgers. For the second time in two nights, the Huskers beat a team in three sets and with a hyper efficient offense.

The Scarlet Knights came out of the locker room with a game plan, and let’s hand it to them, they executed it well. Displaying a wide variety of shots, including rolls, back row attacks and a wide distribution of sets, the Huskers were on their heels for much of set one.

Rutgers were deliberately seeking out chinks in the Big Red armor, and they found a few. But these Huskers are good, if you didn’t know that, and made on court adjustments to get out of set one with the win.

And then the afterburners came on. Set two and three were highlighted by dominant play from the middle. Andi Jackson had 8 kills and a strong supporting effort by Maggie Mendelson, coupled with adjustments to the height of the set to the outside.

Ally Batenhorst, hitting a fabulous .545 tonight, led the way as the Huskers hit .348 as a team, limiting Rutgers to just two blocks. The hitters were able to simply hit over the top of the Knight block, and the Rutgers defense was unable to counter that, leading to some long Husker scoring runs that helped cap off the second two sets in quick fashion.

Nebraska volleyball gets two wins at home against teams it was supposed to beat, and that’s all you can want from this weekend. Additional depth in the middle with Jackson and Mendelson seeing a lot of playing time will be valuable later this season. The Husker serve is rounding into form with four aces tonight against Rutgers, which should make Coach Cook pleased.

In sum, with no apparent hangover from the big Wisconsin game last weekend, Big Red machine is firing on all cylinders with about three quarters of the season complete.

Nebraska travels to Happy Valley to play #13 Penn State Friday November 3rd at 7:30 pm CT. You can watch on BTN/FoxSports. Nebraska beat PSU at home in three sets on October 14th. This weekend, Penn State beat Michigan in four sets but lost to Michigan State in five sets.