WISCONSIN TAKES ON NEBRASKA FOR THEIR FIRST NATIONAL TITLE IN PROGRAM HISTORY

 By: Emily Mylod

                                                            Photo By: Paul Vernon

The Nebraska Cornhuskers are eager to win their sixth National Volleyball Championship title against the Wisconsin Badgers at the Nationwide Arena on 12/18, 7:30 pm.

From Wisconsin, Freshman Anna Smreck is one of the key players. She is 6’ 9 and she is the starting MB. Smrek is very hard to get a point off of when she has amazing blocks. She had a total of seven blocks and 14 kills against Nebraska. Another key player, Sydney Hilley who is the starting setter for the Badgers, and she is a three time big ten setter of the year. Against Nebraska, she got 51 assists which means she helped win the point 51 times. Jade Demps is an OH for the Badgers, she is an all around great offensive and defensive player. Demps got 12 kills and nine digs against Nebraska. 6’ 8 MB, Dana Rettke made a big impact on Wisconsin's win because of her amazing blocks and kills. Rettke got 11 kills and 13 blocks and was able to end her career on a great win. For Nebraska, Kayla Caffey helped them stay alive against Wisconsin by having 10 amazing digs in only the first set. Also, freshman libero Lexi Rodrigez played great defense to keep the volleys going and keep each set a tight scoring game.

With Wisconsons other starting MB Danielle Hart being out of a torn ACL, they knew it would be a tough matchup against the Cornhuskers. Before Hart tore her ACL, she had about 20 blocks and 44 kills. The other girls on the team knew they had to step in after an injury that would impact the team a lot. In the first set, there was a touch call on Wisconsin at first, but then they realized Wisconsin did not touch the ball on the block, Nebraska just hit it out of bounds. Also, in the first and second sets, Wisconsin was struggling because they had eight service errors which could impact the team in a bad way.

Wisconsin Public Radio had a quote that said, "Everything feels brand new," said freshman Julia Orzol. "But with this group, I feel confident to play by their side." With Orzol being newer to the program, at first she didn’t feel that confident. But then once they finally made it to the Championships they knew they had a lot of power and knew what to do as a team. Also from Journal Notes, The head coach for Nebraska, John Cook states, “They’ve been doing really well in practice, and they’ve been doing some really good things,” Cook said Wednesday during the Nebraska volleyball show on the Husker Radio Network. “We’re trying to find a lineup. Some of our older players struggled last week. We got to give these guys a chance. We got to the point where we settled on a lineup, so we’re trying to give these guys a chance to play through if it doesn’t go well. And Stanford was a good opportunity to do that on the road.” Cook had a mindset of if you show us you can play well then you will start, he wants the best 6 players on the court to jump on the other team early and get a good lead. He also wants to see how well the teammates match up with each other and if some play with each other better then others.

The Nebraska Cornhuskers have very tough serving, they put up great blocks, and have very strong defense. Wisconsin has great sets which lead to kills and assists, they are also a very fast moving team and are quick on their feet, and they also have strong defense. 

Nebraska has 19 wins, 11 losses, and one tie with Wisconsin. After the win, Wisconsin is 31-3 and Nebraska is 26-8. In the NCAA Championship for girls volleyball, Nebraska wins the first set 25-22, the Badgers win the second set 31-29 in overtime, the Badgers with the third set 25-23, the Cornhuskers win the fourth set 25-23, and finally the Badgers win the fifth set 15-12. These two teams were head to head for almost all of the matches, making it a five-set game.