NU Beats Mizzou in 5

[Drowning_in_the_Sea_of_Red]

Coming off last week’s stunning loss at Texas, Sarah Pavan wanted to see “a little attitude” from her team Wednesday night.

 

In Pavan’s case, attitude usually comes in the form of a wicked attack or an in-your-face block. You’ve seen the ones where Pavan throws in a verbal barb across the net.

 

But defense? That’s not normally where you see Nebraska’s All-American making a bold statement.

 

“My dad always told me defense is attitude,” Pavan said following No. 2 Nebraska’s wild win over Missouri.

 

“A lot of teams, they think they’ll hit it to me and score, probably because I’m 6-5,” she added. “I didn’t want the ball to land, especially in game five. I worked my (butt) off to get them up.”

 

Pavan finished with 22 kills and three aces, but on a scary Halloween for Husker volleyball fans, it was her four digs in game five that were equally critical in Nebraska extending its school-record home-court winning streak to 67 with a 30-19, 32-34, 30-11, 24-30, 15-10 win at the Coliseum.

 

The match was another head-scratcher for Nebraska head coach John Cook, who said the Huskers were great in games one and three but fell victim to complacency in allowing the match to reach five games.

 

The last time Nebraska was pushed to the brink at home was 2005, when again it was Missouri that extended the Huskers to five games. No Big 12 team had taken a game off Nebraska in the Coliseum since Kansas State, also in 2005.

 

The Huskers, who were swept in a conference match for the first time since 1997 by Texas, remain tied with the Longhorns in the loss column for the Big 12 lead.

 

“Yeah, that cut it, because we fought hard at the end, but we can’t do that again,” Pavan said. “At times, it made it seem like we didn’t earn anything from a week ago. It was really frustrating to see that.”

 

Pavan acknowledges that some of those frustrations stemmed from a valiant effort by Missouri (13-10, 6-6 Big 12 Conference). The Tigers exhibited as much spunk as any team to face Nebraska at the Coliseum over the past two seasons.

 

Na Yang had 20 kills, eight alone in game two, and fellow senior Tatum Ailes, the Bellevue West graduate playing for the final time at the Coliseum, added 22 digs. All night, written on her left hand was the word, “Relentless.”

 

“It was an emotional roller-coaster, especially with this being my last time playing here.” said Ailes, one of four native of the Cornhusker state to play keys roles for the Tigers. “You have no excuse not to play like that every time.”

 

Ailes said the crowd of 4,053 – the 101st consecutive sellout of the Coliseum – helped keep Nebraska in it. Indeed, the fans reached their loudest pitch of the season in game five, when Tracy Stalls scored a solo block to put NU up 8-5 after the Huskers had scrambled to extend the point.

 

Tied 3-3, Nebraska (20-1, 12-1) scored four straight points, three coming on Pavan’s serve as the senior twice dug Yang and added a back-row, out-of-system kill for good measure.

 

The Huskers, shaky on passing Missouri’s short serves for much of the night, executed better down the stretch. The same players who had missed a season-high 14 serves through four games were perfect in game five.

 

“The great thing is we served really tough,” Cook said. “It’s the time to take over, and that’s what we did.”

 

Jordan Larson added 17 kills and became just the 19th Husker to reach 1,000 in her career. Christina Houghtelling added 22 digs despite being benched for a good part of game two.

 

Libero Rachel Schwartz (21 digs) and middle blocker Kori Cooper (14 kills) both achieved career-high totals.

 

link

[knapplc]

I have to say that I'm a smidge concerned about this right after the Texas loss. Maybe there's a bit of a hangover from the Texas match, but we've lost more games in the last two matches than we've lost in the previous 30 matches combined!

 

This is not the worst time for a slump (pre-tournament), but it's not exactly a GOOD time for one, either.

[BIGREDIOWAN]

Well it took our girls to avenge out loss against the Tigers. Great job girls.

[c-flush]

I was a but surprised we didn't sweep Mizzou, but it may be a good thing to have experienced a 5-game match before December.

 

It was good to see Larson get back on track with her hitting.