Nebraska volleyball loses to unranked team for first time in over 6 years (2024)

Unranked SMU stunned the second-ranked Nebraska volleyball team with a 25-23, 25-21, 25-18 win on Tuesday in Dallas, the Huskers’ first loss of the season.

Needing to win the third set to extend the match, the match slipped away from Nebraska late in the third set when SMU had a stretch when it won 10 of 11 rallies.

“We got punched in the mouth, and we let them keep punching us,” coach John Cook said on the Huskers Radio Network. “So I’m pretty disappointed in how we responded tonight.”

SMU picked on the Huskers with its serving, much like Texas did against Nebraska last December in the national championship match.

The loss ends a streak of 128 consecutive wins in matches against unranked teams dating to the 2017 national championship season (against Northern Iowa in Omaha).

That means on back-to-back nights the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the sport lost. No. 18 Minnesota beat No. 1 and back-to-back national champion Texas in five sets on Monday.

The historic win for SMU came in front of 6,773 spectators — a program attendance record by a margin of several thousand.

SMU outplayed the Huskers in the areas of serve and serve receive. Nebraska had 12 serving errors and just one ace. SMU had seven aces.

Naya Shime and Maya Tabron led the Mustangs with nine kills apiece. Middle blocker Natalie Foster had eight kills, hit .462 and served five aces.

Numerous errors you don’t see often from Nebraska piled up and cost the Huskers — getting aced down the line, blockers not being lined up, etc.

SMU had a .242 hitting percentage, and Nebraska hit just .171. Nebraska’s offense rarely had sustained success.

“We tipped way too many balls,” Cook said. “I’m over there telling them, ‘You guys, you got to hit the ball.’”

Transfer outside hitter Taylor Landfair started for the first time at outside hitter in place of Lindsay Krause, but by the second set, Krause was back in. Landfair finished with two kills with a .000 hitting percentage.

Merritt Beason led NU with nine kills but hit just .107. Krause had five kills and hit .250.

While not playing its best, Nebraska was sitting just fine to win the first set with a 20-15 lead. Then SMU ripped off a 6-0 run to get back in the set. After a tie at 23, SMU won the final two points on kills by Nnedi Okammor and Foster.

For SMU, it was game on.

“I don’t know what the match looks like if we don’t take that first set,” third-year SMU head coach Sam Erger said on the ACC Network. “That’s when you get in their head a little bit and now it’s a match. That stretch was huge.”

In the second set, Nebraska never led and any progress was halted by numerous serving errors, including twice near the end of a close set.

SMU had five ace serves in the second set and led the match 2-0.

Cook was already worried about Nebraska’s offense prior to Tuesday, and now the players felt that too.

SMU had the edge in kills (39-36), blocks (10-9) and digs (43-36).

“They’re going to have to step up,” Cook said. “Part of it is we think we’re Nebraska and we’re going to roll out here and smoke teams. (SMU) played very inspired tonight. They played great. They won all the long rallies, so that’s attitude and effort right there.”

SMU wanted a good showing in front of a large crowd. It did even better and got the win.

“We wanted to take advantage of that and show them what it’s all about and how fun it can be, and I think we did that,” Erger said. “It was a really cool environment. Everyone is chanting, ‘SMU’ and then ‘Go, Big Red.’ It was just really fun.

“I will remember this night for the rest of my life.”

-- Brent C. Wagner