Volleyball Today: Nebraska, Louisville win openers; De Boer of Illinois; USA sitting

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — The start of NCAA volleyball season followed the lead of an Eric Clapton hit.

About 40 seconds “After Midnight,” sixth-ranked Louisville finished off No. 3 in four sets in an AVCA First Serve Showcase match that started on Tuesday and ended on Wednesday in the Eastern time zone. That was after second-ranked Nebraska defeated No. 9 Kentucky, also in four sets.

It was quite a kickoff on ESPN2 to the 2024 NCAA women’s volleyball season and there’s so much more to come this week, not the least of which is 218 matches on Friday as the rest of the field gets underway.

Nebraska overpowers Kentucky

Kentucky of the SEC made a match of it for two sets before the Big Ten’s Nebraska turned it on and pulled away for a 25-21, 22-25, 25-15, 25-20 victory.

The key was blocking: Nebraska had 18 blocks, its most since 2018. The Huskers got 11 kills each from Merritt Beason and Rebekah Allick, who had one error in 15 attacks to hit .667 and had two solo blocks and 10 block assists. Beason hit just .114, but had six block assists and eight digs.

While Nebraska hit .258 with four aces — three by Lindsay Krause and eight serving errors, Kentucky hit .139 and had six aces and 16 errors.

Nebraska finally got on the court after what became a well-documented (literally) off season in which some of the attention was not positive since the Huskers lost to Texas in the NCAA championship match.

“It’s one of the reasons we were a little shaky to start the night because we have had a lof of distractions,” Nebraska coach John Cook said. “There’s been a lot of stories and documentaries and all that stuff takes energy from us and it was really cool to be in our locker room for a change and not — well the ESPN guys were in there — but all of a sudden we could focus on us tonight and one of the reasons this was such a rewarding victory for us.”

“We were so excited to play someone else,” Beason said. “This team is so deep and it’s so competitive day in and day out that sometimes we have to remind ourselves that we’re basically playing a national-championship match in practice every day, it’s so high level. There’s been so a lot of attention, but we’ve tried to block that out for the most part and do what we can on our part to remain in the moment and focus on what we need to do.”

Click here for the Nebraska recap and here for the Kentucky recap.

Louisville roars past Wisconsin

Louisville scored the last four points of the 18-25, 25-17, 26-24, 25-20 victory and won despite hitting .166.

Arizona transfer Sofia Maldonado Diaz and Charitie Luper led Louisville with 11 kills each.

Anna DeBeer 10 kills, but with 11 errors hit minus .026. She had 16 digs, second only to libero Elena Scott’s 22. Cara Cresse had eight kills, hit .400, and six block assists.

Wisconsin, which hit .179, got 17 kills from last year’s Big Ten MVP Sarah Franklin. Anna Smrek had 12 kills and Devyn Robinson had eight, hitting .353, and tied her career high with 10 blocks, four solo.

Because the match started — and ended so late — the original announced crowd of 9,280 in the Yum! Center dwindled to less than 2,000 by night’s end.

Click here for the Wisconsin recap and here for the Louisville recap.

State Farm joins the volleyball wave

State Farm has become the title sponsor of what is now the State Farm Women’s College Volleyball Showcase, featuring four huge NCAA women’s matches Sunday and Monday in Milwaukee. 

The inaugural event is at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and includes two-time defending national champion and AVCA coaches poll preseason No. 1 Texas, No. 3 Wisconsin, No. 5 Stanford and No. 18 Minnesota.

Sunday, Wisconsin faces Texas at 11:30 a.m. Central  on FOX, followed by Minnesota vs. Stanford at 2 p.m. on FS1. On Monday, Wisconsin plays Stanford at 4 p.m. on FOX, while Minnesota takes on Texas at 6:30 p.m. on FS1.

The event was put together by Intersport and Fox.

The incredible story of Taylor De Boer of Illinois

Taylor De Boer knows how quickly life can take a drastic turn.

A rising star in the volleyball world,  De Boer was gearing up to play at the University of Illinois in 2023, after serving as captain for Team Canada’s U19 team in 2022.

But Taylor started having health problems in May 2023. First, she experienced sinus, ear and eye infections. After getting her wisdom teeth removed, they got infected. She went on antibiotics, but Taylor wasn’t getting any better. Something was clearly wrong.

After her medical team ordered several tests, Taylor, who was 17 at the time, was sent to OSF Children’s Hospital of Illinois in Peoria. There, it was discovered she had Anti-Neutrophil Cytoplasmic Antibody (ANCA) Vasculitis. ANCA is a rare autoimmune disease that can attack many systems, like the lungs, kidneys, joints and sinuses, all at the same time.

Click here to continue reading the entire story by OSF HealthCare.

USA women aim for Paralympics sitting 3-peat

From USA Volleyball:

The U.S. Women have medaled in every Paralympic Games since women’s sitting was added in 2004. After winning bronze in Athens, they took silver in 2008 and silver again in London in 2016. The team finally broke through with a sweep over China for the gold at the 2016 Games in Rio, and followed it with gold over China again in Tokyo.

Eleven of the 12 athletes on the 2024 team are gold medalists, including six-time Paralympian Lora Webster and five-time Paralympians Katie Holloway Bridge and Heather Erickson. Kaleo Kanehele Maclay and Monique Matthews will play in their fourth Paralympics. Bethany Zummo and Lexi Shifflett-Patterson will play in their third Paralympics, and Whitney Dosty, Tia Edwards Nicky Nieves and Emma Schieck all return for their second Paralympics.

Click here for more from USA Volleyball, including the complete roster. 

Thursday: USA vs. China, 12 p.m. Paris time/6 a.m. Eastern (Peacock)
September 1: USA vs. France, 8 p.m. Paris time/2 p.m. Eastern (Peacock)
September 3: USA vs. Italy, 2 p.m. Paris time/8 a.m. Eastern (USA, Peacock)
September 4: Classification matches for 5th/6th and 7th/8th places
September 5: Semifinals (Peacock)
September 7: Medal matches (CNBC, Peacock)

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