Arizona volleyball ‘not disappointed’ in loss at No. 1 Nebraska

No one expected Arizona volleyball to win in Lincoln, Neb. Giving the No. 1 team in the country a fight was important, though. The Wildcats did that against the Nebraska Cornhuskers before falling 3-0 (25-19, 25-23, 25-18).

“I am not disappointed,” Arizona head coach Rita Stubbs said.

If there was any disappointment to be had, it was seeing the quality of Arizona’s play just days after the team was manhandled by UTEP at home in a match that wasn’t as close as the 3-1 score. The “what-ifs” regarding the losses to the Miners, San Diego, and Washington were hard to dismiss. What if the Wildcats had played this way against those teams?

“Like I told everyone before, I did not have to get the team up for this match,” Stubbs said.

Arizona hit .250 against a team that came in allowing opponents to hit just .110. The highest hitting percentage against the Huskers was .173 by No. 18 Creighton. After the match, Nebraska’s opponent hitting percentage had nudged up to .122.

The Huskers had 3.0 blocks in the match, well below their 8.4 blocks per match and 2.3 blocks per set. The Wildcats out-blocked Nebraska 4.0 to 3.0. Prior to Saturday, Nebraska’s season low for blocks in a match was 4.0 against Lipscomb and Grand Canyon.

Nebraska had the advantage in its ability to terminate and play floor defense. The Huskers had 52 kills to just 38 by Arizona. They came up with 36 digs just just 26 for the Wildcats. UA was especially vulnerable in the middle of the court, a space Nebraska found over and over.

Everyone knows Jordan Wilson is Arizona’s primary offensive weapon. That didn’t keep her from having a big performance for her team. While the Huskers spread their offense around, the Wildcats leaned heavily on Wilson for the first two sets—and she was up to the task.

Wilson had six kills with only one hitting error in the opening set. At the end of two, she had 12 kills and three hitting errors. The senior outside hitter ended with a match high 17 kills on .282 hitting. She was also busy keeping both teams hyped.

“I think it’s worth mentioning that Jordan Wilson was the overall cheerleader for both teams,” Stubbs said.

The rest of her team was struggling to score, though. Only Carlie Cisneros had more than three kills in the first two sets, and she ended with four.

Cisneros found her rhythm in the third set when Wilson began to struggle. While Wilson had five kills in the final set, they were offset by three attacking errors. Her fellow outside hitter stepped up.

While many teams serve the outsides to try to take them out of the offense, Stubbs feels that can backfire with Cisneros. When Nebraska started serving the sophomore, she began to find her offensive range.

“Passing the ball helps her get into a rhythm,” Stubbs said.

Cisneros ended the match with eight kills on .300 hitting. Half of her kills came in the final set when she had four without a single error.

In addition to their difficulties defending the middle of the court, the Wildcats also ran up a large number of service errors. Stubbs was not concerned about it in this case.

“We had eight, but it didn’t feel like it,“ she said. ”I usually know how many we had, but I didn’t tonight.“

Stubbs often talks about service errors being especially damaging when they come in big moments, including after timeouts. That wasn’t the case on Saturday evening.

Arizona regularly scored out of timeouts regardless of who called them. Of the eight timeouts called in the match, the Wildcats scored the point immediately afterwards six times. Just forcing Nebraska to call a timeout was a goal. They accomplished it twice in the second set and won one of the two points immediately after those breaks. The ’Cats won the point after all six timeouts called by Stubbs.

When they had a chance to tie or take a lead, the Wildcats didn’t waste it with a service error. In the second set, Arizona went on a three-point run to tie the frame at 17 points each. Nebraska called a timeout. Instead of shrinking in the moment, sophomore setter Avery Scoggins stepped to the line and served an ace to take the lead when the teams returned to the floor.

In the end, it came down to depth. Nebraska has top players up and down the lineup. Dani Busboom Kelly can replace one who’s already in the lineup with another one who’s on the bench. Her lineup isn’t as reliant on a single player.

Like Arizona, the Huskers only had one player with double-digit kills. Harper Murray had 14 with a .333 hitting efficiency. Unlike Arizona, who only had one other player approach double-digit kills, Nebraska had three. Virginia Adriano and Andi Jackson each had nine while hitting .389 or better. Taylor Landfair had eight with a .267 hitting percentage.

Five different players scored 8.5 points or more for Nebraska. Only Wilson and Cisneros did for Arizona.

Despite the uphill battle, the Wildcats fought. They had a lead late in the second set. They staved off five set points in the opening set, two in the second set, and two match points in the third.

Stubbs credits their ability to get up for the match because of the opponent and the occasion. The question is how can the players get themselves up like that for every match?

With matches at Kansas State and No. 17 Kansas coming up next week, the Wildcats need to figure that out quickly or they could be on a six-match losing streak before they come home to play No. 20 Utah on Oct. 2.

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