The Nebraska volleyball team has arrived in Omaha for the NCAA Tournament and is hoping to stick around long enough that it needs to do some laundry — playing in the Final Four would come on Day 11.
All six rounds of the tournament are being played in Omaha. For Nebraska to win three matches to reach the national semifinals, it will probably need to be balanced on offense, strong on defense and solid in the serving game.
Serving is one of the areas that Nebraska set out to improve on from last season, when the Huskers came up one win short of the Final Four. Coach John Cook says that has happened.
The stats back that up, with the Huskers’ ace serves during league matches jumping from 1.00 per set in 2019 to 1.50 this season. Nebraska has served 84 aces this season, 27 more than Nebraska's opponents.
And the serving stats have also improved when using Nebraska’s more elaborate in-house system that takes into account if a tough serve prevents the opponent from getting an easy pass, set and kill.
“We feel like we’ve made an improvement there,†Cook said.
Freshman defensive specialist Kaylei Akana leads the Huskers with 20 ace serves, and Lexi Sun has 19. Kenzie Knuckles has 13 aces, and Nicklin Hames and Madi Kubik 12 apiece.
Seniors Hayley Desnberger and Lauren Stivrins have each spent time in the other serving spot.
Some of the improvement comes from experience. Last season, Nebraska’s servers included two freshmen with Kubik and Knuckles.
“Our two weakest last year were Madi and Kenzie, and they’ve both upgraded big-time,†Cook said. “They’re putting up some pretty good numbers, and close to where we want them to be. I think Kenzie is a little ahead of goal, and Madi is real close. Lexi is always a very dangerous server, especially if she gets hot. Nicklin is a great server. We gave Lauren an opportunity. She missed a few, but we scored really well in her rotation serving. She’s got a great serve when she believes in it.â€
Akana has been a great addition to the Huskers’ serving lineup. She was an outside hitter in high school and has some wicked serves that can be tough to handle.
“For a freshman (Akana is) doing great,†Cook said. “She brings it. She competes. That kid is fearless. Love her. There have been some matches when we would have given her MVP if we had one. I love what she’s doing.â€
Nebraska’s most successful rotations for scoring points have been when Akana serves, followed by Sun. The Huskers have also had matches when they scored a lot when Kubik was serving.
“We’re trying to put six great servers out there so you pressure teams every rotation,†Cook said. “They’ve worked hard on it. It’s a huge priority for us.â€
Another way to gauge serving effectiveness is opponent hitting percentage, and Nebraska ranks second in the Big Ten, holding opponents to an average attack percentage of .157.
“When we get teams out of system we’re really hard to stop, and that’s when we win games is when we serve and pass really well,†said Hames, who served an 8-0 run during one of Nebraska’s recent matches.
There’s a lot of pressure on the player serving, with a fine line between success and failure. A serving error is bad. But serving over an easy ball isn’t great either, because the opponent has a chance to quickly smash it right back at you.
“I would say (serving) it’s a love-hate kind of, because you want to have a great serve, but at the same time you don’t want to make an error,†Hames said. “And I think we’re trying to get to the love-love part of it where you’re just going to go back there and you’re going to trust it. Coach (Cook) has been saying, 'Mano a mano, so it’s you verses the passer.'"
When Nebraska plays its first match in the NCAA Tournament on Thursday, the Huskers will have gone 19 days between matches.
But Nebraska should still carry over some confidence in its serving from its last matches. Nebraska ended the regular season with two of its best-played matches of the season in wins against Michigan, and serving was a key part of that success.
Nebraska had a season-best 10 ace serves against the Wolverines on March 25. Akana had five ace serves (the school record is seven), including three straight to start the third set.
The Nebraska volleyball team didn’t lead the Big Ten in any of the major team statistical areas, but was pretty good at everything. Here’s the Big Ten leader and where Nebraska stacked up in five areas: