#14 Iowa State at #5 Nebraska, Wednesday 10/21/2009

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#14 Iowa State (15-3 overall, 7-2 conference) at #5 Nebraska (14-4, 7-2)

When: Wednesday, October 21st, 7:00pm CT

Where: NU Coliseum, Lincoln, Nebraska

TV: NET (local only)

Video Webcast: CLICK HERE

Audio Webcast: CLICK HERE

Gametracker: Link not yet available

Nebraska and Iowa State are tied for 2nd place in the Big 12 (behind undefeated Texas).

Iowa State is coming off a sweep of #21 Texas A&M in Ames, and have built on their success from last season when they were a Cinderella story in the NCAA Tournament, making it to the Elite Eight. Since a rough road trip to Texas in September, where the Cyclones were dealt their two conference losses (to #2 Texas and #23 Baylor), the team has lost only one set in six matches. I saw this team at the Texas match in Austin, and while they were overmatched by a Longhorn team that I think will be in the national championship game, Coach Christy Johnson-Lynch (an All-American setter for the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the mid-90's and head coach at Omaha Millard North for one season) has built a scrappy team that believes they can compete with anybody on any night. The Huskers cannot afford to see a return of the hitting and serving errors that have plagued them at times this season.

The Iowa State roster features four Nebraskans:

Carly Jenson, Omaha (Millard North)

Caitlin Mahoney, Omaha (Marian)

Kelsey Petersen, Kearney (Kearney)

Jamie Straube, Tecumseh (Johnson County Central)

 
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Just got home from practice a little while ago...looks like Nebraska is in a dogfight with ISU. Iowa State just took the fourth set to tie it up at two apiece. This is going to a fifth set for the first time in 76 matches against the Cyclones.

 
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Iowa State wins on a block to take the fifth set 15-12. Huge win for that program. They will take sole possession of second place in the Big 12.

 
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That was one of the better matches I've seen all year, just from an excitement standpoint. Both teams fought like hell and the rallies from late in the 4th set to the end of the 5th set were just amazing.

It's a shame someone has to loose a match like that and even more of a shame that it ended up being the Huskers.

 
Drowning_in_the_Sea_of_Red said:
That was one of the better matches I've seen all year, just from an excitement standpoint. Both teams fought like hell and the rallies from late in the 4th set to the end of the 5th set were just amazing.

It's a shame someone has to loose a match like that and even more of a shame that it ended up being the Huskers.
Click to expand...
Well said.

 
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Nebraska Coach John Cook

Opening Statement

“Thirty-four attack errors and there's the game, and we went sloppy in game five, so we didn't learn our lesson from UCLA.”

On the frustration of this match

“It's just upsetting that these guys didn't attack to win game five. We should have won game two, but we came out and hit negative. You just can't do that against a top-15, top-10 team and expect to win. We just gave them too many chances and went soft in the end. We made 34 attack errors. We're hitting balls that are going into the luxury seats over there. They're not even close to the blocker in the court and then we're tipping balls in game five. That's the difference. That's what Iowa State wants you to do, get in the tip-rally game, slop game with them. That's what they want.”

On what Nebraska can take away from the fight of the match

“The only thing to take away is that Iowa State deserved this match and outplayed us. That's what we have to take away. If we want to be a team like Iowa State, if we want to be in the upper half of the Big 12, we had better learn how to compete and how to play and when to serve the ball in the court, when not to shank balls in the stands, and when to hit it in the court. I bet you if you totaled up Victoria Henson's numbers, probably 50 percent of her hits were tips, and she outhit both of our left sides.”

Middle Blocker Kori Cooper

On the difference between set two and set three

“I think that set three we really just came out with a sense of urgency. I think we probably made more errors in the set that we lost. I think the most important thing we can take from this is that we’re not going to let a loss beat us twice. You can break it down, you can look at it by set, by point, by rotation, but Iowa State outplayed us and that's the bottom line. Echoing what Coach Cook said tonight, they deserved the win tonight. I don't think breaking that down, saying what's the difference here or there, Iowa State outplayed us.”

On tonight's loss

I think little things break down communication, not turning free balls into good passes, I think that the little things break down and when the little things break down, we're not playing Nebraska volleyball. Again, echoing what Coach Cook said, that wasn't Nebraska volleyball and we have some big strides we have to take in the next few weeks.”

On coming into this match

“I thought that before tonight we had made some big steps forward, but Iowa State came to play and we didn't show up. They deserved to win.”

Iowa State Coach Christy Johnson-Lynch

On what it means for Iowa State to win

“Well, we said we're 1-76 now. Of course, it's a huge milestone for our program. I always do get real excited about things like this, but I try not to think it's everything. We've had kind of a checklist and milestones along the way for getting to the tournament, getting to the Sweet 16, the Elite Eight, getting ranked, and we felt like this was one thing we hadn't achieved yet was defeating Nebraska. That alone is exciting. I'm excited about the team coming into this environment and winning. Not a lot of teams do that. I'm excited for the team and excited for the program because it's an important win and one that we'll remember for a long, long time.”

On feeling different coming into tonight's match

“Personally, I didn't feel different. Honestly, when I come in here, I don't know if we're going to get blown out or beat them. That's how I came in today. Every season, every match is different. It has its own life. I really didn't know what would happen, but I do think our players in general have felt just a little bit more confident every year. I really thought they believed last year could be the year, but I think this year they were confident that physically we matched up pretty well. This is probably the most athletic team that we've had in the program so far. I think they just sensed that, if nothing else, we just matched up physically with them.”

On Jamie Straube

“She came out big tonight. She has been great blocking, but she's been a little bit off offensively. I felt like this was the first night I’ve seen her be really aggressive and make an impact offensively. I'm really excited for that. I didn't know how she'd play. This is a huge match for someone that's from Nebraska. She could have just as well come in here and been incredibly nervous and made a lot of errors and played tentative. I was pretty proud of the way she performed, she was really aggressive, she didn't act like a freshman, she had great body language. She just exuded a lot of confidence.”

 
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