31-Straight Sets and Counting, but Huskers Call Latest Sweep 'A Little Slow'

The Huskers haven't lost a set since Sept. 16, marking the longest such run since 2009. Better yet – they had no idea.

Nebraska continued its dominant run with a Friday night sweep of Northwestern in front of a packed Devaney Center crowd. | Amarillo Mullen

The historical 2025 season for the Nebraska volleyball team rolled on Friday night with a 10th-straight sweep.

The Huskers made quick work of Northwestern in a 25-17, 25-13, 25-17 win, which featured the team’s 29th, 30th and 31st consecutive sets won. It’s the longest streak of consecutive sets won since 2009 for the Huskers, and believe it or not, they have to win another 22-straight sets to just to tie the program record of 53 sets in a row from the 2007 team.

That’s all great, but after the match on Friday, both coach Dani Busboom Kelly and a few of her star players seemed a bit down.

“I thought there were moments we got a little casual, but we snapped out of them pretty quickly,” Busboom Kelly said. “I just felt like it was a little slow, so when you think about some of the plays we had that were really good, it was slow because there (were) a lot of errors I thought on both sides of the net.”

Nebraska's attack was so spread out Friday night that no Huskers reached double figures in kills. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

A clunky sweep is still a sweep, but the reason it felt out of sorts for NU can be credited to the team’s mindset.

“I think Dani hit the nail on the head,”  Nebraska senior middle blocker Rebekah Allick said. “I feel like our standard is so high that if we’re all not hitting crazy numbers, blocking crazy numbers, we can tend to get really frustrated with ourselves, but even our bad day is still really good.”

Nebraska dominated the match defensively, as they typically do. The Huskers held Northwestern to .099 hitting, with the Wildcats committing 21 attack errors in the loss. NU, on the other hand, hit .357 with such a spread-out offense that not one Husker player ended up with double-digit kills.

NU did record six aces in the match, but it seemed like anytime Nebraska had a play go their way, they would shoot themselves in the foot.

While Nebraska's sweep of Northwestern looks good in the box score, the team admits it was far from its cleanest effort of the season. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

“Neither team was stacking together great play after great play,” Busboom Kelly said. “It was kind of a good play, then a bad play, good play then a bad play, and I think that’s why the stats are better than maybe what you saw.”

The Huskers haven’t dropped a set since Sept. 16, when they dropped two of them to in-state rival Creighton. The Bluejays are one of just two teams this season to take the top-ranked Huskers to a 5th set, with the other one being No. 7 Kentucky back on August 31.

Admittedly, Nebraska’s toughest opponent this season may not be what they’re seeing consistently in actual matches. Instead, it’s practice where the Huskers are really sharpening their teeth.

Rebekah Allick tallied seven kills against Northwestern Friday night. | Amarillo Mullen

“We’re just really freaking good – I’m going to say it,” Allick said. “We’re really freaking good. We have pushed ourselves since January. December 21st is playing in all of our heads. Every match is a national championship, so when we go at practices, we go at sixes, it feels like a freaking Saturday night match when we play sixes – tears are being shed.

December 21st of last season is a date that drills down to the core of this year’s team. On December 19, 2024, Nebraska lost to No. 2 Penn State in a five-set thriller to end their season one match too early. Two days later, on the infamous day of the 21st, the Nittany Lions then beat Dani Busboom Kelly’s Louisville Cardinals 3-1 to claim the national title.

Fast forward to 2025, and you now have a No. 1 Nebraska volleyball team that is a perfect 19-0 on the year, with the last 10 matches all being won via sweeps, even if the most recent sweep over Northwestern didn’t feel as dominant on the court as it looks in the box score.

Andi Jackson notches a kill against Northwestern. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

“It can be really frustrating when you push yourself so hard all week and it doesn’t show for an hour and a half,” Allick said. “It can be really frustrating as a competitor, but personally, as a senior, I couldn’t be more proud because complacency is my biggest fear, (and) I don’t have that worry with this team. I know when Monday (practices) come, it’s going to be a long one.”

All season long, Busboom Kelly has preached that complacency isn’t an issue with this team because if a player wants to take a few rallies off, she’ll be happy to give them a front row seat to the matches from the bench. It’s that mentality that has led to practices, at times, being more intense than the games themselves.

“Here, everyone’s big,” Nebraska freshman outside hitter Teraya Sigler said. “Everyone hits the ball hard. Everyone can jump high. Everyone can do everything that you can, and so it’s like learning to just play a different game.”

Nebraska's toughest opponent week in and week out has arguably been themselves thanks to intense practices. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

When you’re going up against some of the best volleyball players in the country on Mondays and Tuesdays, it tends to make matches on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays pretty relaxed. It’s led to ten-straight sweeps and 31-consecutive sets won for the gals from Lincoln.

Even they admitted, they had no idea where the number stood after sweeping Northwestern Friday night.

“I think something that is so amazing is that I don’t think really any of us knew that,” Sigler said. “We’re just so locked in on the fact that we’re going to do amazing things, but we have an end goal. Our captains have really pushed us that we take it day by day. We do it for each other.”

Nebraska's annual "Pink Night" was about a whole lot more than volleyball. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

On Friday night, they also did it for some very special fans in attendance for Nebraska’s annual “Pink Night.”

“One thing that really resonated with me was when Bergen (Reilly), right before our second set, she hit the nail on the head,” Allick said. “I felt like we could have played better in those first two, and she goes, ‘Guys, we have cancer survivors in the crowd. Let’s give them a show.’ And I’m like ‘that is the freaking truth.’”

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