Nebraska
No. 2 Nebraska Volleyball Survives Five-Set Battle with No. 10 Purdue | Hurrdat Sports
Oftentimes, the stat sheet will tell you all you need to know about an athletic contest. The box score for No. 2 Nebraska volleyball’s five-set win over No. 10 Purdue on Friday was a different story.
The Boilermakers (12-4, 3-2 Big Ten) hit over .300 and out-blocked Nebraska by 10, yet the Huskers (15-1, 5-0) found a way to weather the onslaught and pull out a come-from-behind win in the fifth for a 25-22, 22-25, 23-25, 25-22, 17-15 victory in front of a juiced Devaney Center crowd.
“Welcome to Big Ten volleyball,” Coach John Cook said. “Purdue played great tonight. It was a heavyweight fight and it’s almost too bad somebody had to lose that one. They gave a great effort tonight. I was very impressed with Eva [Hudson] and Chloe [Chicoine]; they put on a show tonight. And I still don’t know quite how we won it, but we’re going to take it.”
Cook said the Huskers were out of sync offensive all night, as evidenced by their 31 attack errors, but Nebraska still hit .242 as Bergen Reilly dished out a career-high 60 assists to go with a match-high 17 digs.
“She’s just so consistent with her demeanor, and I think that’s huge for a setter,” Merritt Beason said of the sophomore setter. “It’s pretty hard to play with the setter when they’re up and down, because it’s like, ‘I don’t really know what to expect from you, I don’t know if you’re mad at me, I don’t know if you’re mad at yourself.’ But that’s what she does really well, and you kind of have to be that way when you’re touching the ball every single point. She’s just so calm and so steady throughout the highs and the lows, and I think that’s what makes her so special.
“Obviously we can talk about her sets, and we know those are great, but I think her demeanor is what helps us the most in moments like that, and just that demeanor also allows us as hitters to know that she has trust in us.”
Beason was on the receiving end of nearly a third of those assists, finishing with a team-high 22 kills on .278 hitting while leading the team with 54 attacks. Harper Murray added 17 kills on .209 hitting while logging 50 serve receive reps as the Boilermakers targeted her all night.
Andi Jackson returned to the lineup after missing last week’s matches with an undisclosed injury and dropped 14 kills on .429 hitting and four blocks. She terminated on 10 of her first 11 swings, forcing the Boilermakers to commit more defensive attention to her as the match went on. Fellow middle blocker Rebekah Allick added 10 kills on .333 hitting.
Lindsay Krause got the start, though she and Taylor Landfair rotated in and out as both struggled to terminate. Krause finished with four kills on .050 hitting while Landfair added six kills on .125. Cook said he’s still looking for somebody to “step up and show that they want it” at the OH1 spot.
“Lindsay was a little tentative tonight, Taylor was tentative,” Cook said. “And then Taylor did get a couple kills in game four, and she got one in game five, but you look at the combination, Taylor had six, Lindsay had 10 kills. Eva had 26 so we’ve got to get more production from that spot.”
Hudson (26 kills on .349 hitting) and Chicoine (22 kills on .327) were anything but tentative. The Huskers only recorded five stuff blocks all night while the dynamic outside duo for the Boilermakers had success tooling most of the night.
“They’re really good players,” Jackson said. “You’ve got to give credit where credit is due. They’re very smart, they had a lot of shots, and I think sometimes at this level, you’ll see outsides who really only have one shot, and once you can take that away from them, you kind of see them start to shut down. But they did a really good job being consistent and when we took something from them, then they found another way to will points.”
Purdue hit .311 but handed Nebraska 19 points from the service line via errors, allowing the Huskers to offset the gap in attack efficiency. The Huskers only missed seven serves and out-aced Purdue three to one.
“I think one thing that I’m really proud of this team is normally, if our defense isn’t going how it always is, and that’s something that we rely on, we kind of used to shut down,” Beason said. “That’s what happened at SMU, they were rolling offensively, and we were kind of like, ‘What do we do?’ But we didn’t do that tonight, and that’s what we’ve been working on.”
Both teams had a tough time terminating consistently against the other’s defense early in set one before settling in. The set featured nine ties and two lead changes with little separation until the end. Jackson took over down the stretch, terminating three times in four rallies to give the Huskers set point at 24-21. Purdue won the next point, but Reilly went to Beason out of the back row to finish it off.
Purdue out-hit Nebraska .324 to .282, but the Boilermakers had four service errors while Nebraska was clean from the line while notching an ace. Jackson went 5-for-5 in her return to the court.
“It was really fun,” Jackson said. “It honestly felt like I never left, just because when I was out, the team was so supportive, and even when I was in street clothes on the bench, I just felt so included because the team just does an amazing job making you feel surrounded with all of their love.”
The teams went back and forth early in set two until Purdue put together a 4-0 run — aided by three Nebraska errors — to pull ahead 12-8. The Boilermakers extended the lead out to six at 19-13 before the Huskers began to chip away, scoring four straight to pull within two.
However, Chicoine dropped the ball in the middle of the donut for a kill, then back-to-back Nebraska attack errors extended the lead back to five. Purdue traded sideouts to earn set point at 24-19. The Huskers ripped off three straight kills from there before Hudson closed it out.
Purdue continued to operate at a high level offensively, hitting .278. Nebraska hit .146 with eight errors in the set. Murray led the way with five kills on 10 errorless swings, but the rest of the team only mustered nine kills on 31 attacks. Landfair replaced Krause midway through the set and produced one kill and two errors on five attacks.
Purdue used a 4-0 run to break an early tie again in set three, earning a 9-5 advantage as Nebraska continued to splutter offensively. The Huskers rallied to tie it up at five different times before surging ahead for a 20-18 lead with a 5-1 run including four kills.
However, Purdue responded with its own 5-1 run including back-to-back Jackson attack errors (her first of the match) to close out the set and take a 2-1 lead.
Purdue hit .364 in the set as its outsides continued to dominate. Nebraska hit .282 behind five kills from Beason.
After Krause played the third set, Landfair was back in the lineup for the fourth. The Huskers got off to a great start, jumping out to an 8-4 lead. They pushed the advantage to five a couple of times, including at 17-12. The Boilermakers recorded blocks on three straight rallies to trim the lead to two, but Landfair and Beason both stepped up with big kills to put the Huskers back in control.
Purdue saved a few set points down the stretch, but Beason closed it out with a back-row kill out of a timeout. Cook opted to give the senior captain more turns in the back row against the Boilermakers than she’s been playing, and the move paid dividends.
“We’ve been working on it, preparing for this match, because we knew it’d be a tight match, and we’re just trying to find some more kills,” Cook said. “What they were doing is they were trapping Andi with two blockers, letting our left sides go one-on-one, and those guys were struggling tonight. So there was an open lane down the middle, and we probably hit for a huge number on our back-row attack tonight. We worked hard on it this week because we knew we were going to need it tonight.”
Nebraska won despite hitting just .114 in the set. Beason led the way with another five kills. Purdue hit .147 and misfired five times from the service line.
Purdue served into the net again to open the fifth but followed it up with a 3-0 run to take the lead. Nebraska tied it up nine times before finally breaking through with a Jackson slide kill for a 13-12 lead.
Purdue turned the tables with a 3-1 run to earn a match point, triggering a Nebraska timeout. Cook subbed Beason in for Laney Choboy in the back row a rotation early to add her firepower and the move paid off as she immediately tied it up with a back-row kill that blasted off the Purdue libero’s face.
The Huskers scored a point off a net violation on the next rally then Reilly went back to Beason in the front row to close out the match.
“She got some big kills,” Cook said. “She was struggling early, struggling blocking, struggling serving, but she showed why she’s a first-team All-American. She made some huge plays for us there. That last kill was a great kill, and that’s what you expect from your first-teamers.”
Purdue did not commit an attack error in the fifth, hitting .481, but the Boilermakers misfired four times from the service line and Nebraska hit .458.
The Huskers will face a quick turnaround as Rutgers (5-11, 0-5) will visit the Devaney Center Saturday night. Kenzie Dyrstad, a Papillion-La Vista South graduate, is leading the Scarlet Knights in digs at 2.93 per set.
First serve is set for 7 p.m. and the match will be available on Big Ten Plus.
LINCOLN, Neb. (Nebraska Examiner) – Hundreds of Nebraskans protested against the Trump administration Saturday along Nebraska Parkway in Lincoln, and thousands protested near Northwest Radial Highway in Omaha as part of No Kings demonstrations statewide.
The third iteration of No Kings protests organized border to border gatherings to vent displeasure at President Donald Trump and his administration’s policy decisions. The Lincoln protest was held on the Helen Boosalis Trail between North 27th Street and North 56th Street.
“I don’t like what’s going on … I know it’s not the world I want to live in,” said Ford Kloepper, a 17-year-old Lincoln resident.
Kloepper said people his age are going to take the “brunt” of Trump’s “mistakes.” He pointed to the recent U.S. conflict in Iran as a motivator to protest for him, as he doesn’t want to get “drafted into a war in the Middle East for no reason at all.”
Many of the protesters, much like previous demonstrations, held anti-Trump signs with slogans like, “Trump lies” and “Stop Trump, save democracy.” Others held American flags and wore costumes. Volunteers from different groups gathered signatures for ballot initiatives and at least one candidate. One of the petitions sought to let voters decide on a state constitutional amendment requiring larger majorities to repeal or change any law passed by voters. Volunteers for nonpartisan U.S. Senate candidate Dan Osborn collected signatures to get him on the November ballot.
Organizers planned 18 protests across Nebraska. In Omaha, the rally was held at Gallagher Park, with thousands of protesters filling the sidewalks and grassy areas near the intersection of Maple Street and the Northwest Radial.
Organizers said the spot let protesters draw attention to historic Benson and all of the restaurants, galleries and coffee shops that have made the neighborhood a cultural destination since 1887. Among the crowd filled with a variety of ages and races was Lorin and Elwin Moseman, waving signs that said, “End Wars Before Wars End Us” and “No Kings No ICE.”
It was the Mosemans’ third anti-Kings rally, and despite the chill of the day, they said they wouldn’t have missed it.
“It could have been an ice storm,” said Elwin, who was motivated in particular by “the Epstein files and Trump being in them, this stupid war we’ve got involved with Iran.”
His wife, Lorin, said she came to “stand up for democracy.”
“I want to show up, stand up and speak out about our country,” she said, decrying “leadership incompetency from the very beginning.”
She said the nation needs a presidential job description and interview, and she was not short on words to describe her disgust and disappointment about current leadership: “Shameful, disgusting, exhausting.”
“We’re in a broken world,” she said.
Nearby, a bundled up woman in a wheelchair held onto a sign that said, “I’m mad about everything.”
Sara Peterson led buses carrying about 75 protesters from First United Methodist Church of Omaha. She said people felt a sense of unity and joy seeing the chanting crowd, which she said reflected her group’s makeup — diverse in age, ethnicity and political party.
“We’re not alone,” she said “It’s an exciting day to be a part of.”
Peterson called the rally a “tangible sign of people coming together … for democracy.” Her group included church members and their friends — some of whom never participated in such a protest or rally before but felt the urge and were nudged “out of their comfort zone to take back our country and democracy.
Since the return of Trump for a second term, the anti-Trump group has organized national protests. Nebraska, much like the rest of the nation, saw multiple demonstrations throughout 2025.
The group also bought ads in local newspapers ahead of the Saturday protests. Nebraska Republican Party chair Mary Jane Truemper had no immediate comment on the protests.
As Election Day gets closer, political observers have wondered how organizers might harness the political energy, whether the demonstrations might signal a coming wave of change at the polls, or whether momentum will fizzle after the crowds go home. Some have argued Democrats and progressives are good at mobilizing people for large-scale protests but have lagged conservatives in building local infrastructure to affect sweeping policy changes.
Back in Lincoln, Erik Betts, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln student, said the political winds are in Democrats’ favor, and he feels the possibilities are endless, even in a reliably red state. He said he thinks Osborn could beat Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, and he hopes the “blue” wave might be large enough to beat Nebraska 1st Congressional District Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Flood, a former speaker of the Legislature.
“We need to really show up this time …We’ve got to take this motivation … and make a difference,” Betts said.
Betts said events like these help him stay hopeful because it reminds him that he is not alone.
“When you are in your own house and just scrolling on social media, it’s easy to feel just defeated,” Betts said. “So I come out as much to show support for everyone else, to feel that maybe a bunch of people agree with [me] and things can change.”
Nebraska Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nebraska Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Aaron Sanderford for questions: info@nebraskaexaminer.com.
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Copyright 2026 KOLN. All rights reserved.
OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – For many families, beating a cancer diagnosis isn’t just about physical recovery. One Omaha cancer survivor is now using her voice to fight for medical debt relief across Nebraska.
Diana Gleisberg Meredith thought she had an upper respiratory infection in January 2024.
“In January of 2024, I felt like I had some kind of upper respiratory – maybe Pneumonia, RSV…” Meredith said.
She was sent from her primary care doctor to the emergency room to a hospital by ambulance in a five-hour span.
“The ER doctor identified that it was cancer, likely lymphoma,” Meredith said.
Diagnosis came as new mother started treatment
The diagnosis came as Meredith became a new mom. She knew she had to immediately start treatment.
“It’s life changing. You go from not having a care in the world to thinking you’re going to die and how is that going to affect my baby. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through emotionally, physically and mentally,” Meredith said.
Meredith said there’s an invisible burden that comes with the diagnosis.
“Not everybody is lucky to have the financial support or the human support to help them,” Meredith said.
Treatment costs could add up to millions
Meredith had 12 chemo treatments. Each used four medications, with one of those costing more than $130,000. For one family, this could add up to millions.
After Meredith entered remission, she began fighting for medical debt relief for other Nebraskans.
“Nebraskans all throughout the state and right here in Omaha – they’re having to make those decisions about should they save their life, or how do they care for their family,” Meredith said.
Advocacy group plans Washington trip
She works with Blood Cancer United alongside other Omaha mothers whose children are cancer survivors. They hold fundraisers like “Light the Night,” collecting thousands of dollars and supporters.
In May, they’ll travel to Washington, D.C., for training on how to push for change at the federal level.
“Our office of public policy gets together to help train these volunteers, help them get to know each other better and develop familiarity with what it means to go to a lawmakers office in Washington DC,” said Dana Bacon, senior director of government affairs for Blood Cancer United.
Meredith is fighting for lower interest rates on medical debt, no foreclosures on homes over medical debt and paused interest rates.
“It’s probably the most stressful thing that you’re going to go through, and then having to add medical debt on top of it? To be honest it’s hell,” Meredith said.
Other states are already protecting families from medical debt. Meredith said Nebraska should be next. Iowa is one of the states that limits liens and foreclosures when a family is drowning in medical debt.
Copyright 2026 WOWT. All rights reserved.
LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Red Flag Warnings are in effect across Nebraska as dangerous fire conditions develop heading into the weekend, paired with unseasonably warm temperatures and strong winds that could quickly spread any flames.
Red Flag Warnings are in place for eastern Nebraska through 9 p.m. Friday night. The warning area expands significantly on Saturday, covering the entire state from throughout the entire day Saturday.
Friday: Moderate Fire Danger, Drying Trend
Friday’s fire concerns are lower than Saturday’s, but still significant. A Red Flag Warning remains in place for eastern Nebraska through 9 p.m. tonight as northerly winds pull in drier air throughout the afternoon. Dewpoints are expected to fall between 0° and 10° this evening as wind speeds taper.
The strongest winds and driest air won’t occur at the same time Friday, which is why confidence in Red Flag conditions is lower than normal today. By sunset, winds will become light and shift to the south as a surface high pressure system moves through the area.
Saturday: Extreme Fire Danger
Saturday brings the most critical fire weather conditions of the period. The Red Flag Warning expands to encompass the entire state as relative humidity values plummet to 8-15% — dangerously dry levels that will allow fires to spread rapidly.
Winds will be the primary concern. Southerly winds are expected to be sustained between 20 and 30 MPH for most — with gusts between 40 and 50 MPH possible at times. These powerful winds combined with extreme dryness create a recipe for rapid fire spread.
Temperatures will warm into the 60s and low 70s on Saturday — warmer in the west — but the heat is secondary to the wind and dryness threat. Relative humidity values will fall below 30% as early as 9 a.m. when the Red Flag Warning begins.
Sunday: High Fire Danger, Lighter Winds
Fire danger remains high to very high Sunday as an upper ridge moves overhead. Temperatures will climb to the upper 70s to upper 80s. The good news: southerly winds won’t be as strong, with gusts peaking at only 20 mph. This provides some relief from the most critical conditions, though fire danger will still be elevated.
Record Heat Monday
Monday will be the week’s warmest day, with mid- to upper-80s and low 90s forecast across Nebraska. Records are within reach — for many areas across the state. Lincoln’s forecast high of 88 degrees would tie the 1917 record.
Pattern Change Ahead
A cold front will slice through the area Tuesday morning, bringing cooler and cloudier conditions back to Nebraska. Highs will fall back to the 50s and 60s — a dramatic 30+ degree temperature drop from Monday. Winds will remain gusty from the north.
Precipitation chances will increase by early to mid-week. Tuesday through Thursday will see low chances (~20%) for light precipitation, with a mixture of rain and snow possible at times. No winter impacts are expected. Better chances are forecast for Wednesday night and Friday night as a wholesale pattern change develops, bringing southwest flow and surface moisture back to the region.
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Copyright 2026 KOLN. All rights reserved.
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