Nebraska Volleyball Sweeps Miami to Reach Sweet 16 | Hurrdat Sports

No. 1 Nebraska volleyball flexed its defensive muscles again on Saturday night to punch its ticket to the Sweet 16 with a sweep of No. 8 Miami.

The Huskers didn’t allow a single Hurricane to hit over .100 in the 25-19, 25-14, 25-18 victory at the Devaney Center. The match lasted 85 minutes as Nebraska outscored its two Floridian opponents 150 to 80.

“This weekend, we were really focused,” Coach John Cook said. “We followed the game plan really well. They were dialed in. We were just taking care of business. It’s a hard time of year to stay sharp, and we just came off a road trip last week, so I thought they did a really good job. They’re playing as a team too; that’s the other thing. Everybody’s contributing somehow.”

Nebraska (31-2) held the Hurricanes (22-11) to .058 hitting. Miami’s star pins, Flormarie Heredia Colon and Grace Lopez, combined for 23 kills, but they also recorded 18 errors for a .076 hitting percentage. Nebraska recorded 10 blocks, eight of which came in the last two sets. The Huskers also served three aces while only surrendering one.

After the match, Rebekah Allick said Nebraska’s defense is good enough to take the Huskers all the way to a championship.

“Nebraska volleyball in particular is known for their defense,” Allick said. “We make it a goal of ours every season to be the number one defensive team in the country, let alone in our conference, which is hard enough. With shutting down [Heredia Colon], just wearing her out can cause a lot of frustration, and that alone can cause kind of an internal crumbling on a team, and so it can make everything else easier to pick apart. So I think our defense could take us all the way to the top.”

Nebraska hit .293 with Harper Murray’s nine kills on .412 hitting leading a balanced attack. She added a match-high 12 digs, three assists, two aces and two blocks to her line while passing 27 balls without an error.

Murray averaged 3.5 kills on .429 hitting and 2.43 digs per set in Nebraska’s first two postseason matches.

“She’s a big key to our team,” Bergen Reilly said. “She does a lot for us. She passes a lot of balls, obviously hits a lot of balls, and just getting her in a rhythm is really good for us. I think she’s just been really aggressive this tournament. She wants to have no regrets leaving the game, so you can kind of see it. I’m really proud of how she has been playing.”

Allick was in on seven of Nebraska’s 10 blocks and added six kills on nine attacks. Merritt Beason and Taylor Landfair added eight kills apiece while Reilly finished with 33 assists and six digs.

“Congratulations to Miami,” Cook said. “If you look at their season, they’ve had a great season in the new ACC. They beat two top-five teams, and I thought this was one of the tougher second round matchups for some of the higher-seeded teams. You can see the athletes they have and the arms that they have, but I thought our block and defense did a great job of wearing them down and frustrating them, and I thought we served pretty well at times, got them in some trouble so they really couldn’t set middle much.

“I thought we made plays when we needed to make plays to just keep the momentum and keep the crowd into it. Really nice effort by our team tonight.”

After giving away the first point of the match, Nebraska took control with a 5-1 run ending in an overpass smash from Beason off a laser of a serve from Lexi Rodriguez. The Huskers remained in front the rest of the way, building a seven-point lead a few times before settling for the six-point win.

Nebraska only hit .235 largely thanks to Miami’s five blocks, but the Huskers held the Hurricanes to .091 hitting. Beason led Nebraska with four kills on eight swings.

The Huskers pulled ahead early in set two as well, using a 3-0 run to take a 7-3 lead. Nebraska pushed it to five with another 3-0 run, then extended it to seven with an ace from Murray, the first of the match. A 4-0 run including an ace from Kennedi Orr pushed the advantage to 10 at 20-10 and the Huskers cruised from there.

Beason and Andi Jackson teamed up for a block on set point, Nebraska’s fourth of the game after only mustering two in the first frame. The Huskers held Miami to .081 hitting with eight errors while hitting .300 themselves behind Murray’s four kills.

Miami took a lead early in set three, but the Huskers responded with the longest run of the night — 7-0 with Murray serving — to jump in front 9-3. The Hurricanes trimmed their deficit to three twice but could get no closer. The Cornhuskers responded to the second push with a 5-1 spurt including back-to-back blocks from Allick to extend the lead to 17-10, and Nebraska remained in control the rest of the way.

Reilly called her own number on match point with a setter dump to close it out.

“It feels good,” Reilly said. “I was in a good position a lot of the time today, and everyone was kind of on, so they weren’t really paying attention to me, and I knew that. It feels nice to finish the match on that.”

The kill was one of four on the night (on seven attempts) for “Bergen Beast Mode,” which is what Cook calls it when his setter looks for her own offense.

Nebraska hit .357 and held Miami to .000 thanks in part to four more blocks.

With the win, the Devaney Center will host one more weekend of volleyball. Nebraska volleyball will host No. 5 seed Dayton, while No. 2 Wisconsin and No. 6 Texas A&M will also visit Lincoln for the Sweet 16. Allick said she’s grateful for another weekend at the Bob.

“Typically we’ll have fans wait out couple of hours with Wisconsin, Penn State, really big teams that we’re used to seeing huge turnouts, but the students were showing up hours early for the first to second rounds of the tournament,” Allick said. “It just made me really appreciate what we have here … Husker nation has truly just been a gift day in and day out. It blows my mind that we could regularly sell out the stadium.”

The Husker regional will take place on Friday and Sunday.