Volleyball
Twelve Sets, Zero Losses, and a Ballpark: Nebraska Plays Wrigley Tonight
Correction, September 6: This article originally said Nebraska were 6-0 and 16-0 in sets. That summed in the two wins at Spikes Under the Lights, which were exhibitions and do not go on the record — as our own report from Arlington said at the time. The record is 4-0, 12-0 in sets, and it is corrected below.
Big Red Nation, clear your Sunday night. This one is not going to happen again.
At 8 p.m. Central, on FOX, Nebraska plays Missouri at Wrigley Field — the first volleyball match ever staged at the ballpark. Not in a tent outside it, not in a nearby arena. On a raised platform built inside a hundred-and-twelve-year-old baseball stadium, under the lights.
And the Huskers arrive without having lost anything yet.
Four matches. Twelve sets. Zero dropped.
Nebraska is 4-0, and the sets are 12-0.
Not 12-3. Not 12-1. Nobody has taken a single set off this team all season — and that run includes Texas, swept in Las Vegas in a No. 1 versus No. 2 match that lasted three sets and never felt close.
| Aug 29 | UNLV | W 3-0 |
| Aug 30 | Texas | W 3-0 |
| Sep 2 | South Dakota State | W 3-0 |
| Sep 4 | DePaul | W 3-0 |
Friday’s sweep in Chicago came in front of 8,786 — a DePaul volleyball attendance record, set on a night the visitors came to town.
Nebraska has done outdoors before, and it went well
If a volleyball court in a baseball stadium sounds like a stunt, remember who is playing in it.
In August 2023, Nebraska put a match in Memorial Stadium and drew 92,003 people — at the time the largest crowd ever to watch a women’s sporting event anywhere in the world, beating the 91,648 who saw Barcelona play Wolfsburg the previous year.
Wrigley will not hold ninety-two thousand. That is not the point. The point is that this program has already proven it can carry an outdoor spectacle and win the match while it is happening, which is the part everybody forgets.
What to watch
Whether the streak survives contact with a ballpark. Outdoor volleyball is a different sport in small ways that decide sets — wind off Lake Michigan, a ball that behaves differently on serve, sightlines nobody has practised in. Sixteen straight sets is a lovely number and it has never been tested in an open-air stadium.
The freshmen and the first-year starters. Six matches in, Dani Busboom Kelly’s rotation has been able to sweep without needing a fourth set. Nobody has seen this group have to grind one out. Tonight might be the night, and that would tell you more than another 25-18 does.
Missouri. They are not Texas, but they are an SEC opponent on neutral ground in front of a national audience, and everybody plays Nebraska like it is their season opener.
The details
- Sunday, 8 p.m. Central
- Wrigley Field, Chicago
- FOX — national broadcast
Husker Nation, four matches and not one set given away. Let’s see if a ballpark can do what Texas couldn’t.