Nebraska finished with seven aces and only six errors (plus several overpasses by the Longhorns), while the Longhorns misfired eight times without recording an ace. Four different Huskers served aces, with two apiece for three of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgainst any team, serving is really important, but against a super physical team like Texas, it might be the most important thing,\u201d Busboom Kelly said. \u201cYou really want your players to have a lot of confidence back there, and that\u2019s harder than you think until you\u2019ve been in that position. It\u2019s tough to go back there and rip a serve in a big moment against a great team. So I\u2019m just really proud that our hard work and practice paid off today, and that our mindset more than anything paid off.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Nebraska](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/SJ5_7287-300x200.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Nebraska senior Bergen Reilly shows off her ring after winning MVP of the Players Era Showcase in Las Vegas. Photo by Sean Jorgensen.<\/p>\n
Bergen Reilly earned Players Era Showcase MVP after setting a balanced Nebraska offense to a .293 hitting percentage with 30 assists, a team-high five digs, two aces and two kills.<\/p>\n
Andi Jackson led the attack with nine kills on .571 hitting and an ace. Harper Murray added eight kills, and although she hit just .091 with six errors, Busboom Kelly praised her passing and highlighted her importance to the team whether she\u2019s terminating at a high clip or not. Manaia Ogbechie finished with seven kills on .308 hitting and seven blocks while Teraya Sigler matched her with seven kills on .357 hitting and added two aces.<\/p>\n
Nebraska held Texas (2-2) to .152 hitting, with the strong serving and a dominant blocking edge (10 to four) contributing heavily.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a very good attacking team, and we watched their film and we did a lot of scouting on them, and we knew that they like to set the ball tight to the net,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cThey\u2019re an aggressive team, like Dani said. They\u2019re super physical, so they\u2019re going to go up there and challenge the block. We just knew that we needed to be low and over, nice and disciplined. There wasn\u2019t anything different that we had to do necessarily, just low and over and play our game. We practice out-of-system blocking also every single day, so going back to the basics, knowing what we need to do, and I think we put ourselves in really good positions.<\/p>\n
\u201cManaia especially, she blocked phenomenally today. She\u2019s been blocking phenomenally, but I think you can just see the calm demeanor on the court when it comes to our team blocking. Everyone just it looks super confident when they\u2019re out there and super calm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Middle blocker Nya Bunton was the only Longhorn with multiple attacks to hit over .150, and Nebraska limited her to just six swings after she totaled 10 kills on .643 hitting in the sweep over No. 18 TCU on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
The Longhorns played without sophomore outside hitter Abby Vander Wal, who injured her knee against the Horned Frogs. Without one of their top attackers, Coach Jerritt Elliott shifted to a 5-1 system with Rella Binney serving after opening the season in a 6-2. Elliott announced after that match that Vander Wal\u2019s injury is season ending.<\/p>\n
Sunday was the first meeting for the two former conference rivals since Texas served Nebraska off the court in the 2023 national championship. While the players expressed excitement in the preseason about playing the Longhorns again, they were focused on the task at hand Sunday rather than seeking revenge from four years ago \u2014 especially considering there\u2019s only one player on Texas\u2019 roster who was a part of that championship team.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really starts at the top with the leaders, and those are our four seniors,\u201d Busboom Kelly said of her team\u2019s focus. \u201cWhen they have this great mentality, it just bleeds into the whole team. They\u2019ve learned a lot in their careers, and sometimes it\u2019s tough to put that into action, but these four are on a different level this year, just of what they want to do, how they\u2019re communicating, how they\u2019re leading. Again, to see that in action, and you think you see it every day in practice, and you think you feel it, and OK, it\u2019s there, but is it really?<\/p>\n
\u201cTo see that against a great opponent in a really fun environment that feels pretty big time was huge for us and that\u2019s just going to pay off later.\u201d<\/p>\n
First Set<\/p>\n
Reilly may have secured MVP honors at the beginning of the match, serving a 10-0 run including an ace to give Nebraska a 15-8 lead early. The senior had the Longhorns all out of sorts as they contributed seven attack errors to Nebraska point total (to just six kills for the Huskers themselves). Extended serving runs proved to be the theme of the match for Nebraska.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see a lot of consistency from Bergen,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cI think you can just see it in her play on the court. She\u2019s always super consistent, super calm demeanor, and you could really see that in her run in the first set. She went back there, had tons of confidence. Whatever zone they gave her, she was hitting it, and she made it really tough for them to side out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s what we need from the service line, we need to put pressure on teams from the service line. We\u2019ve worked really hard on that this preseason and then over the summer. Huge credit to Bergen and her consistent demeanor, her consistent ability to put pressure on teams, and also just her calm demeanor that keeps people level-headed on the court.\u201d<\/p>\n
Texas settled in after that, trimming the deficit to two three times late, but Nebraska responded with big kills from Jackson and Sigler before Reilly returned to the end line and served out the set, closing on a 4-0 run including another ace on set point.<\/p>\n
Nebraska out-hit Texas .292 to .069. The Huskers only managed 11 kills, but they didn\u2019t need more with the Longhorns contributing 10 points via attack errors and another two via service errors.<\/p>\n
Second Set<\/p>\n
Nebraska fell behind 4-1 to start the second set, but this time it was defensive specialist Laney Choboy who provided the spark. After Virginia Adriano served in the first set, Busboom Kelly turned to Choboy in the second, and the senior responded with a 6-0 run including an ace and an overpass to set up an easy kill for Murray.<\/p>\n
![\"Manaia](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/SJ3_1205-300x200.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Manaia Ogbechie (14) and Bergen Reilly (2) elevate for a block, one of 10 stuffs for Nebraska against Texas in the Players Era Showcase. Photo by Sean Jorgensen.<\/p>\n
The Huskers maintained the lead until Choboy\u2019s second turn at the service line, and she broke it open even further with a 4-0 spurt for an 18-10 edge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been working really hard in practice on our serving, and that\u2019s something that I really tried to buy into in the spring and the summer and then preseason was just my serving and just taking risk and not just trying to get the ball in the court,\u201d Choboy said. \u201cSo I think I went back there just feeling comfortable and confident because I\u2019ve been doing it in practice every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nebraska cruised from there, and with the Huskers leading 22-15 late, Busboom Kelly gave Skyler Pierce a look on the right side.<\/p>\n
\u201cVirginia\u2019s got a pretty terminal arm, but we know that we need some other players ready in that position, and Skyler\u2019s been having an awesome preseason and I wanted to see what she could do over there,\u201d Busboom Kelly said during her post-match interview on the Huskers Radio Network. \u201cIt won\u2019t be a rotating door, but we\u2019re going to work other players in and see what they can do when we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nebraska eventually closed out the set with a kill from Jackson to take a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Texas out-hit Nebraska .385 to .342, but with the Longhorns\u2019 passing struggles, Nebraska took six more swings to tally two more kills and benefitted from four Texas service errors. Jackson went off for five kills on six swings.<\/p>\n
Third Set<\/p>\n
Nebraska\u2019s serving dominance continued into the third set as Sigler opened the frame with another ace and a forced overpass for an Ogbechie kill. Texas briefly tied it up at 5-all, but Nebraska responded with a 5-1 run including four Husker kills (two by Murray) to take the lead for good.<\/p>\n
Another Sigler ace helped the Huskers push the lead to seven midway through the set and Nebraska kept the Longhorns at a safe distance the rest of the way. The Cornhuskers closed out the set with a 4-0 run featuring Jackson at the service line.<\/p>\n
Nebraska\u2019s defense again carried it home as the Huskers held the Longhorns to .000 while hitting .231 themselves.<\/p>\n
Up Next<\/p>\n
After trips to Texas and Las Vegas, Nebraska will briefly stop at home before hitting the road again for a midweek match. The Huskers will head to Brookings, S.D., for a Wednesday match against South Dakota State, then soon after they\u2019ll head to Chicago for two more matches \u2014 against DePaul at Wintrust Arena Friday and against Missouri at Wrigley Field on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like about 24 hours and we\u2019ll be gone, and then we\u2019ll be back for 24 hours and then gone, so it\u2019s going to be a crazy week,\u201d Busboom Kelly said. \u201cMaybe these opponents aren\u2019t top-five, top-10 opponents, but we\u2019re putting our team in situations that are going to create a little adversity. This first week was kind of all over the place, but I think it was good, and it\u2019s good to work through that and not let little things bother us and make sure we can adjust.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just really proud of that, and we\u2019re going to have to carry that over to this next seven-day trip of matches.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Youtube](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1788156969_807_hqdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dani Busboom Kelly\u2019s offseason challenge to her Nebraska volleyball team was to become the best serving squad in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-421603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}