Nebraska Went to Its Bench, FGCU Stole a Set, Then the Huskers Slammed the Door

Husker fans, for one set on Sunday afternoon, No. 1 looked human. Look closer and it wasn’t the No. 1 lineup on the floor.

Nebraska beat FGCU 3-1 (25-10, 25-17, 25-27, 25-14) at John Cook Arena at the Bob Devaney Sports Center to move to 10-0. That’s the 17th time in program history the Huskers have started that way. But the number worth talking about from this one is 27.

The set that got away

The first set was the kind you forget. Nebraska ran off 12 straight points, its best run of the season, and won it 25-10 while holding FGCU to -.097 hitting.

Then Dani Busboom Kelly went to her bench. Campbell Flynn took over at setter for Bergen Reilly, and freshmen Keoni Williams and Gabby DiVita came in along with Jayden Robinson and Keri Leimbach. That group still won the second set 25-17.

By the third, four players from that first-set lineup were sitting: Reilly, Andi Jackson, Harper Murray and Virginia Adriano. Ryan Hunter and Skyler Pierce joined the rotation. That’s the set that turned.

FGCU led 15-13. Nebraska answered with four straight, capped by a Manaia Ogbechie ace, to go up 17-15. From there the Eagles took over and reached set point at 24-20.

Nebraska didn’t blink. Five straight points. An Ogbechie block made it 25-24 Nebraska, one swing from a sweep.

FGCU took the next three. 27-25, Eagles.

The box score tells you how it happened. Nebraska had 10 attack errors in that set alone and hit .054. In the other three sets combined, it had six.

What they said about it

Teraya Sigler didn’t dodge her part in it.

“Obviously, that set probably wasn’t the best I could have done, or I obviously had some errors,” Sigler said in the postmatch press conference.

And then the line that explains everything that came after:

“I’d rather us, any of us, lose swinging for it than lose than being timid and being scared.”

Flynn ran the offense for all three of those sets and saw the dropped one as the price of getting the bench real minutes.

“Obviously we don’t want to lose a set… the bench players got to play a little bit more. So it was great. I loved it.”

The fourth set was the answer

Murray came back for the fourth. Nebraska opened it 9-3 for the second time in the match, on a Flynn kill. FGCU scratched back to 11-9. Then kills from Hunter and Murray and an Ogbechie-Murray block pushed it to 17-10, and it was 23-13 before Hunter ended it with her seventh kill.

Ten attack errors in the third set. Zero in the fourth, with 13 kills on .542 hitting.

That’s the response you want from a team that just gave one away.

The block party

Nebraska finished with 16 blocks to FGCU’s four, its most since it put up 20 at Maryland in 2024. Ogbechie had a hand in eight of them, a career high, and added a career-high four aces. Hunter had a career-high seven kills.

Sigler led the offense with a season-high 13 kills. Murray added 11 on .556 hitting. And Olivia Mauch picked up her first career double-double, 17 digs and 10 assists.

The Huskers served eight more aces, which puts them at 70 for the season. Per Nebraska, that’s the most through 10 matches since at least 2000.

Up next

Missouri comes to John Cook Arena on Wednesday, Sept. 23, at 6 p.m. on BTN. That’s the makeup of the suspended Wrigley Field match, and it starts over at 0-0.

Husker Nation, a No. 1 team that loses a set and then plays its cleanest set of the day is a team worth watching Wednesday.