Volleyball Today: Nebraska, Louisville win openers; De Boer of Illinois; USA sitting

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — The start of NCAA volleyball season followed the lead of an Eric Clapton hit.

About 40 seconds “After Midnight,” sixth-ranked Louisville finished off No. 3 Wisconsin in four sets in an AVCA First Serve Showcase match that started on Tuesday and ended on Wednesday in the Eastern time zone. That was after second-ranked Nebraska defeated No. 9 Kentucky, also in four sets.

It was quite a kickoff on ESPN2 to the 2024 NCAA women’s volleyball season and there’s so much more to come this week, not the least of which is 218 matches on Friday as the rest of the field gets underway.

Nebraska overpowers Kentucky

Kentucky of the SEC made a match of it for two sets before the Big Ten’s Nebraska turned it on and pulled away for a 25-21, 22-25, 25-15, 25-20 victory.

The key was blocking: Nebraska had 18 blocks, its most since 2018. The Huskers got 11 kills each from Merritt Beason and Rebekah Allick, who had one error in 15 attacks to hit .667 and had two solo blocks and 10 block assists. Beason hit just .114, but had six block assists and eight digs.

While Nebraska hit .258 with four aces — three by Lindsay Krause and eight serving errors, Kentucky hit .139 with six aces and 16 errors.

Nebraska finally got on the court after what became a well-documented (literally) off season in which some of the attention was not positive since the Huskers lost to Texas in the NCAA championship match.

“It’s one of the reasons we were a little shaky to start the night because we have had a lof of distractions,” Nebraska coach John Cook said. “There’s been a lot of stories and documentaries and all that stuff takes energy from us and it was really cool to be in our locker room for a change and not — well the ESPN guys were in there — but all of a sudden we could focus on us tonight and one of the reasons this was such a rewarding victory for us.”

“We were so excited to play someone else,” Beason said. “This team is so deep and it’s so competitive day in and day out that sometimes we have to remind ourselves that we’re basically playing a national-championship match in practice every day, it’s so high level. There’s been a lot of attention, but we’ve tried to block that out for the most part and do what we can on our part to remain in the moment and focus on what we need to do.”

Click here for the Nebraska recap and here for the Kentucky recap.

Louisville roars past Wisconsin

Louisville scored the last four points of the 18-25, 25-17, 26-24, 25-20 victory and won despite hitting .166.

Arizona transfer Sofia Maldonado Diaz and Charitie Luper led Louisville with 11 kills each.

Anna DeBeer had 10 kills, but with 11 errors hit minus .026. She had 16 digs, second only to libero Elena Scott’s 22. Cara Cresse had eight kills, hit .400, and six block assists.

Wisconsin, which hit .179, got 17 kills from last year’s Big Ten MVP Sarah Franklin. Anna Smrek had 12 kills and Devyn Robinson had eight, hitting .353, and tied her career high with 10 blocks, four solo.

Because the match started — and ended so late — the originally announced crowd of 9,280 in the Yum! Center dwindled to less than 2,000 by night’s end.

Click here for the Wisconsin recap and here for the Louisville recap.

State Farm joins the volleyball wave

State Farm has become the title sponsor of what is now the State Farm Women’s College Volleyball Showcase, featuring four huge NCAA women’s matches Sunday and Monday in Milwaukee. 

The inaugural event is at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and includes two-time defending national champion and AVCA coaches poll preseason No. 1 Texas, No. 3 Wisconsin, No. 5 Stanford and No. 18 Minnesota.

Sunday, Wisconsin faces Texas at 11:30 a.m. Central on FOX, followed by Minnesota vs. Stanford at 2 p.m. on FS1. On Monday, Wisconsin plays Stanford at 4 p.m. on FOX, while Minnesota takes on Texas at 6:30 p.m. on FS1.