Huskers 'Serve' Up a Dominating Performance to Open Big Ten Play

It's been a point of emphasis for weeks in practice, and the hard work behind the service line finally paid off for Nebraska against Michigan Wednesday night.

Nebraska opposite hitter Virginia Adriano's serve caused Michigan fits Wednesday night. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

When a match only lasts an hour and 16 minutes, there is usually not a whole lot that can be said about it. One team, at least on that night, was far superior and played nearly flawless volleyball.

However, when you add on the fact that top-ranked Nebraska did it to a conference opponent who entered Lincoln with just one loss on the year coming in, it’s okay if your eyebrow raises just a little bit.

The No. 1 team in the country looked the part Wednesday night in Lincoln in a dominating 25-22, 25-10, 25-13 win over Michigan. After a slow start that led to the tight first set, the Huskers settled in — and a lot of the thanks for that goes to the Nebraska serve.

Andi Jackson sends a jump serve over. | Amarillo Mullen

After being unable to tally a service ace in the first set, the Huskers went on to put down five in the final two sets to turn off the lights on any hope Michigan had of staying competitive in the match.

“I thought our servers started really hitting their zones,” Nebraska coach Dani Busboom Kelly said. “We stuffed their libero, (that) was great. We thought early on maybe we could get them in trouble serving her. She proved us wrong, but we adjusted out of that real quick. Hats off to our servers. They were also changing depths really well. Olivia got a few aces short, which that’s really good to see.”

Opponent	Aces	Errors
Michigan	5	7
Arizona	1	6
Creighton	4	12
Grand Canyon	4	7
Utah	3	11
California	6	5
Wright State	3	6
Kentucky	4	10
Lipscomb	3	7
Stanford	1	4
Pittsburgh	3	8

Nebraska’s five service aces in those final two sets are good enough for the second-highest ace total on the season for the Huskers. The best serving night they’ve had all year came against Cal, where they tallied six service aces to just five service errors, which is also the only time this season Nebraska’s had more aces than errors behind the service line.

“I would definitely think, looking back at previous games and just our ace-to-error ratio was very good,” Busboom Kelly said. “Nobody made a ton of errors. I just thought each server did a great job. Even Campbell Flynn came in at the end and got an ace and served really tough.”

What doesn’t necessarily end up in the box score is how Nebraska’s serve impacted Michigan’s offense. On the serves the Wolverines could dig up, the passes were far from ideal, with many of them turning into overpasses and easy kills for the Huskers.

Nebraska's dominant serve led to a lot of easy kills against Michigan Wednesday night. | Amarillo Mullen

One of the key reasons the balls were getting passed back to Nebraska’s side of the net is the speed of the Husker serve.

"I mean, we’ve been working a lot in practice about just turning up the speed on our serves, and we haven’t been super happy with our serving,” Nebraska setter Bergen Reilly said. “It’s just been a little too easy, and that’s been a really big focus of practice the last couple days — just trusting it and thumping it and really getting some speed on it, and it worked.”

While opposite hitter Virginia Adriano didn’t account for one of the five aces on the night, she was one of the many reasons Michigan had serve-receive issues on the night, leading to easy kills for NU.

Nebraska volleyball opposite hitter Virginia Adriano says she and the rest of the team have been working on adding speed to their serves in practice over the past week. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

Ultimately, she says it’s not any one particular thing that makes her serve so successful, but when it all comes together, it leads to matches like we saw against Michigan.

“I try to find consistency,” Adriano said. “We work a lot at that in practice, and yes, I’m trying to increase the speed, but not too hard because then I’m not consistent. Then I try to be aggressive, but at the same time not make so many mistakes. I’ve always been told that the serve is the first line of attack, so it’s always good to start there.”

The Huskers wrap up their three-game homestand Saturday when they welcome in Maryland. First serve is set for 4 p.m. CDT.

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