Nebraska Volleyball Beats Indiana 3-0, Streak Reaches 47

Nebraska volleyball took its regular-season winning streak into a sold-out gym against a top 15 team and came out with it at 47. No. 1 Nebraska swept No. 15 Indiana 25-15, 25-19, 25-19 Thursday night at Wilkinson Hall in Bloomington.

The question after Saturday’s sweep of Maryland was whether the streak would hold through a third road match in eight days. It did. The Huskers are 16-0 and 5-0 in the Big Ten, and have won 23 straight in road and neutral-site matches, tied for 11th all-time in the NCAA and the longest nationally since 2011.

Four hitters, one night

Nebraska hit .379 and spread it around. Harper Murray led with 11 kills on .364 hitting, with seven digs and two blocks. Teraya Sigler had 10 kills on .389 hitting, five digs and a pair of blocks.

Andi Jackson hit .471 with nine kills. Manaia Ogbechie had eight kills on .500 hitting and a team-best six blocks.

Bergen Reilly had 35 assists, seven digs and three kills. Olivia Mauch led the team with 10 digs and added six assists and three aces.

How it got there

Nebraska scored the first three points of the match and led 8-2 before Indiana called time. Sigler had five kills in the first set, and two straight kills from Reilly helped push the lead to 17-9. A block by Virginia Adriano and Ogbechie ended it at 25-15. Indiana hit .179 in the set.

Mauch served four straight points early in the second, one of them an ace, for a 5-1 lead. Indiana got within 12-9, and back-to-back kills from Ogbechie and Sigler made it 20-14. Murray had five kills in the set, including the last one.

The third set was the test. Indiana led 4-3, and then led again at 12-10 after four straight points. Mauch answered with back-to-back aces to put Nebraska up 14-13. From 15-15, the Huskers scored four straight, three of them with Murray serving. Nebraska took the last three points of the match, the final two on blocks by Ogbechie and Kenna Cogill.

The numbers

Nebraska led 46-34 in kills, 36-20 in digs and 7-6 in blocks. Indiana hit .282 for the match and .333 in each of the last two sets, and still did not get past 19 points.

Ella Boersema led the Hoosiers at .438 with nine kills, and Jaidyn Jager also had nine. The crowd at Wilkinson Hall was 2,705.

Indiana falls to 10-4 and 3-2 in the Big Ten.

What is next

No. 7 Wisconsin comes to John Cook Arena at the Bob Devaney Sports Center on Saturday, Oct. 10. First serve is 6 p.m. CT on FOX, the same day and the same network as Nebraska football against No. 7 Indiana at 11 a.m.

Husker Nation, Saturday tells us whether a 47-match regular-season streak holds against a top 10 team at home.