LINCOLN—After the first set, Nebraska looked like it was in for a long evening against Michigan.
The Wolverines rallied to close their deficit to 22-21 before NU won three of the final four rallies to pull it out. The teams went back and forth for 30 minutes as Michigan out-hit the top-ranked Huskers, .323 to .302 in the first set.
However, the Huskers cranked up the pressure with their serving and defense to dominate the final two sets in a 25-22, 25-10, 25-13 victory over the Wolverines that took 75 minutes Wednesday evening in front of 8,543 fans at John Cook Arena.
Opened B1G play with a sweep! 🧹✅ pic.twitter.com/zv2RY42Q7K
— Nebraska Volleyball (@HuskerVB) September 25, 2025
NU finished with a .380 hitting percentage with five aces from five different players and multiple kills on overpasses. Michigan (10-2, 0-1) entered the match hitting .311 on the season, but finished with a .108 hitting percentage, including a negative third set. Its previous season-low was .245 in a five-set loss to Virginia.
NU coach Dani Busboom Kelly said she wasn’t worried during the first set, and she trusted that their game plan would eventually start working.
“Michigan came out on fire, and when their offense is clicking, it’s really hard to stop,” she said. “We were hanging in there, hanging in there, and I thought we did a great job of just trusting our scout and understanding that they were playing almost perfect. We just had to keep doing what we were doing, and things would start to go our way.”
The Huskers’ offense started slowly as it took seven swings before they recorded a kill. Eventually, NU settled in and took control after a 5-0 run with Virginia Adriano serving. The Huskers led by as much as 19-12 before Michigan won nine of the next 12 rallies. Nebraska, which finished with 18 kills on 43 attacks in the set, closed it out after Allison Jacobs sent her serve into the net.
Busboom Kelly said one key adjustment was that they stopped serving Michigan libero Maddi Cuchran after the first set. The 5-foot-5 graduate student was targeted nine times in the opening set, but only passed two more serves the rest of the match.
Instead, the Huskers went after the Wolverines’ outside hitters as Jacobs, who led Michigan with eight kills, was served 22 times, and Ella Demetrician passed 13 times.
“Our servers started really hitting their zones,” Busboom Kelly said. “Their libero was great. We thought early on maybe we could get them in trouble serving her. She proved us wrong, but we adjusted out of that real quick. Hats off to our servers. They were also changing depths really well.”
Olivia Mauch set the tone for the second set as she served four straight points to put NU up 5-0. The Huskers eventually led 12-2 and never faced trouble, hitting .565 in the set as they converted on 16 of their 23 attacks.
The Huskers started to serve tougher as they recorded two aces and had five kills on overpasses in the set. Adriano also got on track as she tallied six kills on seven swings.
NU entered the match with 32 aces this season, the lowest total in the Big Ten, and was the only league member to average less than an ace per set. Junior setter Bergen Reilly said they haven’t been happy with their serving and wanted to be more aggressive from the end line.
“It’s just been a little too easy, and that’s been a really big focus of practice the last couple of days,” she said. “Just trusting it and thumping it and really getting some speed on it.”
Michigan kept it close to start the third set and tied it up at 8-all, but then the Huskers took over with Reilly serving. NU ran off seven points in a row as Reilly added an ace and forced two overpasses that led to two kills.
Freshman setter and Michigan native Campbell Flynn came on late for the Huskers and recorded her first career ace against her home-state team.
Reilly finished with 28 assists and moved past Busboom Kelly for fifth on NU’s all-time career rally-scoring era chart. She said she knew she had passed her coach on the list because her sister, Raegen, had texted her the news.
“Being a setter at Nebraska is such an honor, and getting to do it at such a high level with such amazing teammates is something that I’ll never forget,” she said. “I hope I’m only getting started, too.”
Murray led Nebraska with 11 kills while hitting .391, while Virginia Adriano added 10 kills at a .444 clip. Rebekah Allick put up nine kills on a .412 hitting percentage while Andi Jackson terminated on eight of her nine swings.
Even though the Wolverines outblocked NU 7-6, the Huskers’ floor defense did its job with 13 more digs. Olivia Mauch led the Huskers on defense with 11 digs while Reilly added nine.
For the Huskers, the win is a strong start to the 10-week-long conference season. Michigan came in with a potent offense, but NU’s serving and defense wore them down.
“We’ve been waiting to have one of these games where we just make a statement, and I think we really did that tonight,” Reilly said. “We’re really happy with starting this way, but we know that it’s 10 long weeks, and one game in isn’t going to decide much. We are really taking it day by day, game by game, and hopefully we can keep having games like this.”
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