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Nebraska Drops a Set, But Still Earns the Victory

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Nebraska Drops a Set, But Still Earns the Victory


The streak is over. 

UCLA ended Nebraska’s run of 48 set victories in a row that dated back to Sept. 16 in a five-set win over Creighton. 

However, the Huskers’ perfect season continues as they earned a 25-17, 25-23, 19-25, 25-15 win Friday night in front of a school record crowd of 10,498 at Pauley Pavilion. 

“It was good for us to get tested, and then I thought we delivered,” NU coach Dani Busboom Kelly said on her postgame radio interview. ”In some big moments, certain players that knew they were going to get the ball, had to get the kill. It was great to see them do that under pressure.”

NU (25-0, 15-0) also saw its streak of 15 matches in a row of hitting at least .300 end as the Huskers finished with a .299 hitting percentage. The last time the Huskers failed to hit .300 in a match was also the last time they failed to sweep their opponent. Bergen Reilly led the offense with 34 assists. 

Nebraska led 6-1 in the third set before the Bruins (14-11, 8-7) rallied and began stringing points. UCLA eventually took a 15-13 lead in the set. Nebraska closed to 18-16, but the Bruins ran off five points in a row to take control before Maggie Li added kills for their final two points. The Huskers hit .190 in the set and tried to find a spark late by bringing in Campbell Flynn. 

Andi Jackson said it was good for the Huskers to face a little bit of adversity and be pushed by an opponent. Even though they’ve been tested before, dropping the set will benefit them going forward. 

“We all agree that it was really good for our team. The pressure is off,” Jackson said on the BTN broadcast. “You could definitely tell in the first, second and third sets, we were playing like there was so much pressure on us and just a weight on us. So now that’s gone, and we can play free once again.”

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NU finished with 12 hitting errors, which is not too out of line with its recent performance, but it took them 137 swings to accumulate 53 kills. 

For the first time all season, an opponent outdug the Huskers as UCLA finished with 59 digs, led by 17 from libero Lola Schumacher. Setter Kate Duffey and outside hitter Maggie Li added 10 each. NU recorded 48 digs, paced by 14 from Laney Choboy. 

Li led the Bruins with 20 kills while Cheridyn Leverette added 17 kills. Marianna Singletary finished with 12 kills and seven blocks. 

“We’re getting outworked defensively, which is rare for us,” Busboom Kelly said. “UCLA played exceptional, especially from the defensive end, and their outsides were great. We learned that we’re not invincible.”

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The Huskers’ offense struggled to start, recording just two kills in the first 16 rallies. However, UCLA had bigger problems, committing four hitting errors, missing two serves, and having two bad sets. NU extended its lead to 19-9 on five straight points from Rebekah Allick — four kills and a block with Virginia Adriano — before UCLA regrouped behind a 5-0 run. Harper Murray added 3 kills in the red zone to help wrap the set up. 

The second set also featured some drama as UCLA used a 5-0 run to go up 10-5 in the second set as they recorded 8 kills on their first 19 kills. The Huskers only had one kill on 13 swings in the same time frame. 

Nebraska battled back and took a 13-12 lead after winning eight of the next 10 rallies. The Bruins went back in front and led 18-16, but the Huskers again locked in and won seven of the following eight points. During one of those two points, an attack from Li was called long. However, replays showed that NUs block touched it, which, if called, could have cut the Huskers’ lead to 21-20, but the Bruins opted not to challenge the play. 

UCLA fought off two set points, but Murray delivered the final point with a big swing to push NU’s set streak to 48. 

Rebekah Allick slams an overpass for a kill against UCLA.

Rebekah Allick slams an overpass for a kill against UCLA. The senior middle blocker finished with 13 kills and seven blocks against the Bruins / Nebraska Athletics

In the fourth set, NU raced out to an 11-5 lead as Jackson recorded three kills during a six-point stretch. She put up seven kills in the set as she finished the night with 15 kills on 24 errorless swings. 

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“Our passers pass so good, and Bergen and Campbell set the ball so well; they put it in great positions,” Jackson said. “I go up and obviously have space and vision when I’m hitting, but it’s really like when you get such a great set off of a great pass, it makes it super easy.”

The Bruins got as close as 14-11 in the fourth set after a missed serve, and NU won eight of the next nine rallies to put the match on ice. 

“We ended on a super high note, and kind of the way we’ve been playing all year,” Busboom Kelly said. 

Murray finished with 14 kills while Allick contributed 13 kills on a .440 hitting percentage and seven blocks. Taylor Landfair only recorded five blocks, but was in on six blocks. Adriano finished with just two kills as Allie Sczech played the second and third sets and also recorded two kills. 

The Huskers stay in Los Angeles and face another tough test against No. 17 USC on Sunday at noon CST. 

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“USC is very, very good,” Busboom Kelly said. “They are definitely a team that’s playing great right now and is young, but they serve really tough. It’s going to be quite the battle on Sunday.”

Stay up to date on all things Huskers by bookmarking Nebraska Cornhuskers On SI, subscribing to HuskerMax on YouTube, and visiting HuskerMax.com daily.





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Jocelyn Brasher enters Nebraska AG race, squares off with former boss

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Jocelyn Brasher enters Nebraska AG race, squares off with former boss


She left that role with the AG’s Office, which had her also heading multistate investigations, to prosecute crime as a deputy Dodge County attorney. Most recently, Brasher, 35, was a litigator for an Omaha private firm. Earlier, she led the child support enforcement division in the Dawson County Attorney’s Office in Lexington.

A Democrat, Brasher said her decade-long legal career in prosecutorial positions prepared her for the elected office that she says should be “independent and principled” and argues has been dragged down in recent years by partisan politics. 

She contrasts herself with Hilgers, saying, “He has made this office very political and very partisan by having a partisan agenda. That is not me, and that is not what I will do.”

Her top priorities include consumer protection, public safety and health care. 

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Among the cases she is proud of, she said, is a monetary settlement for students of Bellevue University who were impacted by misleading information regarding the school’s nursing program.

She said she also helped resolve a $35 million settlement with Tempoe LLC that ended a 41-state investigation into what she described as “predatory leasing” practices. 

If elected, Brasher said, she would assemble a task force to combat crimes against children. She also would “work to ensure immigration enforcement in Nebraska complies with constitutional requirements and due process.” 

In distancing herself from Hilgers, she cited his resistance to medical marijuana. Nebraskans in 2024 approved the legalization of medical cannabis with more than 71% of the vote, yet Brasher said Hilgers is “fighting the voice of the people” by threatening a lawsuit that goes against that.

On Day One, she said she’d “work swiftly” to provide guidance for patient access to medical cannabis so “providers can have the guidance they need to prescribe it and that they won’t be at risk.”

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Brasher also took aim at how the Attorney General’s Office handled a four-year-long case against the former director of History Nebraska. The state’s highest court last month confirmed that prosecutors waited too long before bringing Trevor Jones to trial, and the felony theft charge was dismissed.



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No. 13 Purdue escapes with an 80-77 OT win against No. 7 Nebraska after blowing a 22-point lead

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No. 13 Purdue escapes with an 80-77 OT win against No. 7 Nebraska after blowing a 22-point lead


LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Oscar Cluff’s layup put Purdue ahead with 3.9 seconds left in overtime after Nebraska had taken its first lead and Gicarri Harris’ two free throws sealed the No. 13 Boilermakers’ 80-77 victory over the No. 7 Cornhuskers on Tuesday night.

Purdue (20-4, 10-3 Big Ten) escaped after blowing a 22-point lead early in the second half. The Boilermakers recorded their second top-10 win of the season to start a difficult closing stretch that has them playing three top-10 teams over 16 days.

Nebraska (21-3, 10-3) lost for the third time in four games following a 20-0 start. All three losses were to ranked opponents.

Fletcher Loyer led Purdue with 18 points, Trey Kaufman-Renn had a career-high 19 rebounds and Braden Smith had 13 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds.

Rienk Mast led the Huskers with 18 points, Jamarques Lawrence added 16 and Pryce Sandfort had all 15 of his points in the second half.

Sandfort’s layup with 1:31 left in overtime gave Nebraska its first lead, 77-75. Cluff had a chance to tie it when he got fouled pulling down an offensive rebound, but he made only one of two free throws. Cluff’s putback on the next possession put the Boilermakers up by a point in the final seconds. Lawrence fumbled Sam Hoiberg’s inbound pass, and Harris picked up the ball and got fouled. After Harris made his free throws, Cluff intercepted the Huskers’ length-of-the-court pass just ahead of the buzzer.

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The Huskers, who overcame 16-point deficits in two of their wins, forced overtime on Mast’s putback with 12.8 seconds left. Mast missed what would have been a go-ahead free throw, and Smith’s fallaway jumper in the lane bounced off the rim as time ran out in regulation.

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Trump signs $800 million beef import deal as Nebraska cattle herds shrink to 64-year low

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Trump signs 0 million beef import deal as Nebraska cattle herds shrink to 64-year low


LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – According to the USDA’s latest cattle inventory report, beef cow inventory is at its lowest in Nebraska since 1960, with cattle herd size decreasing by 20% since 2019 due in large part to drought.

It’s a trend that has been seen across the country, with that same report showing a 13% decline in cattle inventory across the United States over the past seven years.

That reality was the inspiration behind a deal signed by President Trump last week to import an additional $800 million in beef from Argentina to the United States in 2026.

“We do import beef from a number of different countries, so the fact we’re going to import more is not new,” Mark McHargue, the president of the Nebraska Farm Bureau, said. “We just need to ensure there’s not anything relative to the trade conversation that would lessen our producers’ ability to make money.”

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The per-pound price of beef has increased by nearly $3 since 2019, according the Federal Reserve.

The per pound price of beef has increased by nearly three dollars since 2019, according the Federal Reserve.

But McHargue says this plan will lower prices “artificially” and could work against the interests of some.

“We start bringing more product in from outside our borders and that’s going to be competitive to those that have been here in Nebraska growing beef, growing cattle for a long time,” he said. “They’ve been struggling to finally make a profit and then we bring in too much from some place else, lower their competitive advantage — that takes money out of their pockets.”

Sharing those concerns is Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer, who released a statement in response to the decision.

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The Nebraska Cattlemen released a statement of their own in response.

10/11 also spoke with one cattle farmer in Malcolm, who did not want to be named but said he supports President Trump’s move to quadruple beef imports. He said cattle supply is currently so low that producing enough ground beef for consumers isn’t doable. In his opinion, imported meat will keep products available and reasonably priced until farmers like him are able to build their inventory back up.

ALSO WATCH: Night Beat with Jessica Blum

Nebraska farmers reaction to more Argentinian beef, Ken Siemek to be inducted into Nebraska Broadcasters Hall of Fame and more

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