Nebraska takes the best shot from Arkansas, wins in four

Nebraska’s dream-like home season wrapped up with a fairy tale ending.

After beginning the season with a match in front of 92,003 fans at Memorial Stadium, the top-seeded Huskers closed out with a hard-fought win over Arkansas in the NCAA Tournament regional final before 8,713 in the Devaney Center.

The Huskers improved to 32-1 overall, 21-0 at Devaney, with a 26-24, 25-14, 21-25, 25-23 victory Saturday over the ninth-seeded Razorbacks. Nebraska, making its sixth trip to the national semifinals in the past nine years, plays fourth-seeded Pittsburgh on Thursday. Pitt pulled off a reverse sweep over ACC rival Louisville early Saturday.

“It’s just been kind of a magical season in many ways and to win it tonight in our crowd was awesome,” Nebraska coach John Cook said. “It’s very rewarding because our fans deserve this too. It’s just a different ballgame when you get to this point. It’s a different intensity and there’s a lot of pressure trying to get to a final four. It’s hard to do, really hard.”

After the match, the NU players took a lap around the court, high-fiving the fans.

“Everyone says there’s no place like Nebraska, and our fans come out, and they prove it every single night and every single home game,” Reilly said. “So it’s cool to give back to them a little bit and just say thank you to them just by doing that little thing.”

The Razorbacks were the first team to reach 20 points in three of the four sets, but Nebraska rallied to win the first and fourth sets.

“Before the season started, Coach was saying that one of the best attributes of this team was our competitiveness,” freshman setter Bergen Reilly said. “I’m not surprised that we didn’t back down in those tough moments in those tough situations. That’s what makes this team really special — we have no fear and we hate to lose just as much as we love to win.”

Arkansas (28-6), an at-large from the SEC, put Nebraska on its heels to start the match. The Razorbacks led 12-6 following an ace  by Jillian Gillen.

Junior right side Merritt Beason said the Huskers run drills where they are behind on the scoreboard every day in practice. The purpose is to develop toughness and a mentality of not trying to score more than one point at a time.

“Trying to not let the outside factors and the doubt slip into our minds and just reminding ourselves that we literally do it all the time,” she said. “Winning the deuce games is what’s been really important for us this year, and we’ve been doing that all season.”

Nebraska also faced a 21-16 hole in the first set, before it began to claw back, but still trailed by five points when Cook called his second timeout. Freshman Harper Murray responded with back-to-back kills, and then Murray and Bekka Allick teamed up for a block.

Maggie Cartwright went kill-error-kill to give the Razorbacks a 23-21 lead, and then Beason took over. Beason recorded Nebraska’s last four points on two kills and two blocks (both with Allick) to give her team the set.

The Nebraska block continued to do work in the second set as the Huskers sprinted out to a 9-2 lead. Arkansas got as close as 17-12 before the Huskers finished the set on an 8-2 run.

Beason finished with a match-high 19 kills and eight blocks, while Allick added 12 blocks. Nebraska put up a season-high 17 blocks. Freshman middle Andi Jackson put up four blocks with her seven kills and hit .385.

“I knew we would have a great blocking night against them because of how we trained and once we settled in,” Cook said. “Because the offense they run, it’s fast, so if you’re in the right spot. You can get blocks.”

In the third set the biggest lead was two points until Arkansas went on a 4-0 run for an 18-15 advantage. Nebraska trimmed it to 21-20, but Arkansas pulled out the set win.

In the fourth set, Arkansas committed six errors down the stretch – four hitting, two of which were via Nebraska blocks — and two service errors, including on match point. 

Arkansas coach Jason Watson said he thought his team was one play away from winning the first and fourth sets, but the postseason amps up the pressure and great teams don’t make it easy on you.

“The margins get so much slimmer and there’s nothing you can do to prepare for those margins,” Watson said. “You work to get to this stage to put yourself in a chance to make one play, and you don’t and it’s brutally unkind. It’s brutally unkind. It’s such a brutal finality to a season.”

Jillian Gillen paced the Razorbacks with 14 kills, but had 10 errors and hit .070. Arkansas, for that matter, hit .100, its second lowest this season, while putting up 180 attacks. The Huskers finished with just 155 swings. Cook credited the discrepancy to his team’s block rejecting so many attacks. The Huskers outdug Arkansas 78-62.

“Arkansas is a gnarly team to play,” Cook said. “You saw how many times we got three people on the floor on one of their shots and we can’t really transition back because they made it really hard on us.”

Murray finished with 15 kills and 12 digs, while Lexi Rodgriguez led the NU defense with 20 digs.

Reilly tallied 40 assists, four blocks and 16 digs and recorded NU’s only ace on the match’s first point. NU tied a season-low with three service errors.

Arkansas recorded eight aces, a season-high for a Husker opponent, but missed on 10 serves, including on match point.

Cook said he told the team he was proud of them for reaching the last week of the season. He credited the captains – Beason and Rodriguez – for leading a group that included four freshmen and no seniors.

“I’m having a hard time putting it into words. It will come to me at some point, but they’ve done an amazing job,” he said. “They’ve had a lot of close matches and I told them it’s the connections and the relationships they have with each other. That is what allows teams to be able to do that.”

Lincoln Arneal