Nebraska beats Penn State, advances to NCAA volleyball final

This was supposedly an upset.

On Thursday at Sprint Center, No. 5 seed Nebraska beat No. 1 seed Penn State, the unanimous top team in the country, in five sets (25-18, 23-25, 24-26, 28-26, 15-11) to advance to the NCAA volleyball national championship game on Saturday. The Huskers will face Florida, which knocked out Stanford in Thursday night’s second semifinal.

But should it really qualify as a surprise? Penn State (33-2) had only lost once this season — and that loss came against the Huskers (31-4), who shared the Big Ten title with the Nittany Lions.

A year ago, Penn State lost in the NCAA round of 16 … to Nebraska.

The win gives Nebraska a 6-2 record against No. 1 teams under head coach John Cook. That includes a 3-1 record against top-ranked Penn State teams.

This one was a bit more intense than the last match these teams played, when Nebraska swept three straight sets.

“Penn State Nebraska bring out the best in each other,” Cook said afterward. “… You guys should have great stories to write.”

Nebraska was seeded fifth, but it had the confidence that comes with recent history on its side. It also had the crowd. Cornhuskers fans made up most of a largely full arena, especially in the lower bowl.

Maybe that explains why Nebraska was never out of this contest, even in the moments when it felt like there was a chance the Huskers would fall apart.

Nebraska was a point away from elimination, down 26-25 in the fourth set after earlier being down 6-1, and the Huskers responded with three straight kills — for the win — from Briana Holman, Jazz Sweet and Lauren Stivrins. The women combined for 38 of Nebraska’s 66 kills. They had seven blocks.

And the Huskers carried that momentum into the fifth set, in which they took the lead with five straight points that put them ahead 9-6.

Nebraska senior setter Kelly Hunter said the Huskers viewed every point of the fifth set as “the national championship point.”

“We need to think like that,” she said. “We need to play like that.”

Penn State responded with two straight points to make it 9-8, but then Nebraska scored six of the final nine points in the match.

A Hunter kill clinched the match for Nebraska. The Huskers stormed the court and dropped to their knees as they swarmed one another. The crowd roared while the Nittany Lions collected themselves in a circle after just their second loss of the season.

Penn State has won 7 national titles, including four straight from 2007-2010, but it has fallen short every year since 2014. And for the second consecutive tournament, the Nittany Lions can blame the Huskers for that.

“We say they’re the team to beat,” Hunter said. “Nebraska might be the team to beat, too.”

This story was originally published December 14, 2017 at 9:14 PM with the headline "Nebraska beats Penn State, advances to NCAA volleyball final."