Nebraska
VB Match Previews: Huskers return home to face Illinois and Michigan
VB Match Previews: Huskers return home to face Illinois and Michigan
Nebraska volleyball, still standing strong as the nation’s No. 2-ranked team, is set to close out its October stretch with two Big Ten home matches this weekend.
The Huskers (18-1 overall, 8-0 Big Ten) will first battle Illinois (13-5, 5-3) on Friday and then face Michigan (15-4, 5-3) on Saturday at the Devaney Center.
Let’s take a look at the stats to know and players to watch on both sides, plus how to watch and listen to the two B1G matchups.
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HOW TO WATCH, STREAM & LISTEN
#2 NEBRASKA (18-1 overall, 8-0 Big Ten) vs. ILLINOIS (13-5, 5-3)
Time: 7:00 p.m. CT
TV Channel: NONE
Commentators: Jacob Schrantz (play by play) and Camden Cohn (color)
Streaming: B1G+
Radio: Huskers Radio Network with John Baylor and Lauren (Cook) West will broadcast all the action on their volleyball affiliate stations
Listen online: Huskers.com (LINK)
App Audio: Official Huskers App
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#2 NEBRASKA (18-1 overall, 8-0 Big Ten) vs. MICHIGAN (15-4, 5-3)
Time: 7:00 p.m. CT
TV Channel: NONE
Commentators: Jacob Schrantz (play by play) and Camden Cohn (color)
Streaming: B1G+
Radio: Huskers Radio Network with John Baylor and Lauren (Cook) West will broadcast all the action on their volleyball affiliate stations
Listen online: Huskers.com (LINK)
App Audio: Official Huskers App
SERIES HISTORY
NEBRASKA-ILLINOIS:
>> Nebraska is 35-8-1 all-time against Illinois and has won 10 in a row in the series, including a 25-18, 25-22, 25-17 sweep in Champaign on Oct. 3.
>> Illinois is one of Nebraska’s three Big Ten double-play opponents this season.
>> Nebraska coach John Cook is 12-1 all-time against Illinois coach Chris Tamas, one of his former assistants. Overall, Cook is 26-2 all-time coaching against his former assistant coaches.
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NEBRASKA-MICHIGAN:
>> Nebraska is 23-3 against Michigan and has won 15 straight in the series. The last five matches have been Husker sweeps.
SCOUTING REPORTS
NEBRASKA
All stats and info provided courtesy of Nebraska Athletics Communications
>> Nebraska has won 15 matches in a row since a loss at SMU on Sept. 3. Twelve of the 15 wins have been sweeps.
>> The Huskers rank ninth nationally and third in the Big Ten with a team hitting percentage of .301.
>> Nebraska ranks ninth nationally in kills per set (14.28).
>> Outside hitter Harper Murray is leading the Huskers with 3.32 kills per set and 18 service aces. Murray also adds 2.13 digs per set.
>> Opposite hitter Merritt Beason is averaging 3.03 kills per set for the Big Red and is hitting .243 with 1.28 digs per set and 13 aces.
>> Lindsay Krause and Taylor Landfair have split time at NU’s other outside hitter position and have averaged 2.33 and 2.41 kills per set, respectively.
>> Middle blocker Andi Jackson is averaging 2.70 kills with a .480 hitting percentage, which leads the Big Ten.
>> Middle blocker Rebekah Allick adds 1.77 kills per set on .382 hitting with 1.29 blocks per set.
>> Setter Bergen Reilly is averaging 11.20 assists per set, which ranks fifth in the nation and leads the Big Ten. She also adds 3.02 digs per set and has 14 aces. Reilly has 11 double-doubles and has been named Big Ten Setter of the Week three times this season.
>> Three-time All-American Lexi Rodriguez guides the Husker back row with 3.73 digs per set and is coming off a season-high 22 digs in a sweep at Ohio State last Saturday.
ILLINOIS
>> Illinois (13-5, 5-3 Big Ten) has won five matches in a row since an Oct. 3 loss to Nebraska in Champaign. The Fighting Illini swept Indiana and Maryland last weekend.
>> Raina Terry averages 4.28 kills per set.
>> Brooke Mosher ranks 13th nationally with 40 service aces.
>> Former Nebraska assistant coach Chris Tamas is in his eighth year as head coach at Illinois and is 144-90 overall. Tamas was an assistant at Nebraska from 2015-16 and was on the staff of the Huskers’ 2015 NCAA Championship team.
MICHIGAN
>> Michigan (15-4, 5-3 Big Ten) has already surpassed its overall win total from last season (7) and equaled its Big Ten win total (5) with 12 matches remaining. The Wolverines play at Iowa on Friday night before coming to Lincoln.
>> Allison Jacobs leads the Wolverines with 4.12 kills per set.
>> Valentina Vaulet ranks fifth nationally with 49 service aces on the season.
STATS TO KNOW: NEBRASKA
SERVE AND PASS
>> Nebraska has allowed just 35 service aces this season, which leads the nation. The next closest team is Pittsburgh with 43.
>> Nebraska’s opponents have served 14 aces and committed 120 service errors over the last 12 matches.
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BALANCED ATTACK
>> Nebraska has seven different players averaging between 1.77 and 3.32 kills per set.
>> Six different players have led the Huskers in kills in a match this season.
>> Reilly ranks fifth nationally averaging 11.20 assists per set.
>> Nebraska’s attack has been one of the best in the nation this season. The Huskers rank ninth in hitting percentage (.301) and kills per set (14.28).
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HOME SWEET HOME
>> Nebraska has won 36 home matches in a row dating back to Dec. 1, 2022, which is the longest active streak in the nation.
>> The Huskers’ home win streak is its longest since moving into the Devaney Center in 2013.
>> Nebraska’s longest all-time home win streak was 88 matches from 2004-09. Since then, NU also has a home win streak of 38 matches in a row from 2009-11.
SEWARD, Neb. — Early childhood educators from Nebraska and surrounding states will gather at Concordia University, Nebraska, for the school’s annual Early Childhood Conference on June 7-8, 2026, with an optional pre-conference also planned on campus.
“The theme for this year’s event is Unshakable!” said Concordia Nebraska Assistant Professor of Education Dr. Drew Gerdes. “We know that teachers are hard workers; teaching is challenging in many ways but also rewarding. At Concordia, we have a strong history in developing and supporting teachers, and this conference is one way that we can connect with those in the field, support and encourage them, and offer opportunities to ‘fill their toolbox’ with new ideas and strategies.”
Conference keynote speaker Raelene Ostberg, founder of Thriving Together, will address attendees about finding and keeping joy in their work with students, families and colleagues. Thriving Together is an organization dedicated to supporting early childhood educators.
The Sunday evening dinner keynote speaker will be Rev. Dustin Lappe ’97, who serves at Messiah Lutheran Church and School in Lincoln, Nebraska. Organizers said Lappe has years of experience as both an early childhood teacher and a pastor.
“This conference will feature many break-out sessions on a variety of topics,” Gerdes said. “From the value of music in learning to differentiated learning to early literacy skills, participants will be able to hear from veterans in the field and leaders in education who have a great passion for sharing and helping others grow.”
Concordia Nebraska first hosted an early childhood conference decades ago under the leadership of then-program director Dr. Leah Serck ’58.
“Educators from Nebraska and many surrounding states look forward to this event each year, which has a rich history of bringing in high-quality keynote speakers and valuable topics,” Gerdes said.
More information, including pre-conference and conference details and pricing, is available at cune.edu/ecc. Early bird discounted registration is available until May 22.
Nebraska
Starting fires helped contain a Nebraska wildfire — and ignited another – Flatwater Free Press
This story is made possible through a partnership between Flatwater Free Press and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
As the fast-moving blaze rolled toward Fire Chief Jason Schneider’s district in Cozad, he and his crew faced a literal uphill battle.
The Cottonwood Fire was tearing through the Loess Canyons, an area defined by steep slopes, narrow valleys, few roads and pockets of invasive eastern red cedar trees, which can throw embers and ash — and even explode — when they burn.
“You think you would have it put out, and you keep on moving north, and you’d look back south and it’s just going again behind you,” Schneider said.
But the situation started to improve when they connected with a prescribed burn group. They had equipment and showed Schneider and his volunteer crew how to use fire to contain the wildfire.
“It would have burned a lot more if they hadn’t showed up and helped us get it stopped where we did,” Schneider said.
Already, 2026 has marked Nebraska’s worst year on record for wildfires. As of May 6, wildfires have burned about 981,502 acres and dealt a blow to ranchers. They also have brought to the forefront the best arguments for and against a controversial and centuries-old land-management practice: Using fire to fight fire.
In March, the Cottonwood Fire, contained by prescribed burn techniques and past prescribed fires, made the case for the practice. In the Nebraska National Forest that same month, heavy winds turned the smoldering remnants of a prescribed burn into the Road 203 wildfire, bringing to life some landowners’ and managers’ worst fears.
The debate over prescribed burns had been simmering long before those wildfires and has grown louder in recent years as more Nebraskans turn to the practice. The Nebraska Prescribed Fire Council estimates that during modern times, 2025 saw the most acres burned in a single year by prescribed fire.
But in areas of the state like the western Sandhills, the practice has sparked backlash.
“There was a (prescribed burn) group that tried to establish a couple of years ago up around the Tryon, Mullen area up in there. And they almost lynched that group,” Keystone-Lemoyne Fire and Rescue Chief Ralph Moul said. “They said, ‘No, we do not want fire in the Sandhills,’ because there’s nothing to stop it up here.”
Despite the fear, there is overwhelming evidence that prescribed burns, when done correctly, can help prevent massive wildfires by burning up volatile fuels like cedar trees. They can make the land ecologically healthier and save ranchers money.
“The wildfires you’ve seen here in Nebraska the last few years are also a consequence of removing fire from the landscape,” said Kent Pfeiffer, program manager for the Northern Prairies Land Trust. “You don’t get rid of fire, you just change the nature of it … instead of having frequent, low-intensity fires, you end up with infrequent, high-intensity fires.”
The issue may be growing more urgent as the state faces dual threats. Large swaths of Nebraska’s native grasslands are in danger of becoming cedar woodlands — an already costly headache for ranchers. Meanwhile, climate change is bringing more extreme conditions, including intense stretches of drier and hotter weather that can lead to more destructive wildfires.
Drought conditions and major wildfires
“It’s time to innovate a bit more on the wildfire and prescribed fire side,” said Dirac Twidwell, a rangeland and fire ecologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “What we know is that overall, our fire management is not working.”
‘I burned them’
Tucker Thompson was in his 30s when he first helped out on a prescribed burn on another person’s property near Gothenburg back in the early 2000s. The rancher, who summers cattle in the Loess Canyons, knew some neighbors would be upset, but cedar trees were starting to sprout across his land. He wanted to get ahead of the problem, and he was curious.
By today’s standards, the group’s equipment was basic and their knowledge limited. Even though everything went fine, Thompson left thinking the entire practice was insane. He went home and took a chainsaw to the cedar trees across about 400 acres of his property.
“And then five years later, they all start coming back. Ten years later, it’s like, I have no choice. There’s no way of killing these dang things, so I burned them,” Thompson said.
Now, Thompson continues the practice and is a member of two burn groups. He helped firefighters contain the Cottonwood Fire, even as it ravaged his grazing lands.
Prescribed burns “decrease the fuel load in these canyons, so we can control these fires to some degree,” Thompson said.
The Loess Canyons area has one of the most advanced prescribed fire cultures in the entire country, Twidwell said. It has reduced the risk of catastrophic fire and made the land more suitable for grazing, which has boosted landowners’ profits, he said.
Up until the last 150 years, fire was common in Nebraska. Wildfires would naturally control species like eastern red cedar. Indigenous peoples have also used fire for a variety of reasons in this region.
Prescribed burns are common in other Great Plains states like Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas. In Nebraska, it’s more prevalent in the eastern and central parts of the state. The benefits extend beyond fire protection — it also increases biodiversity and wildlife. Even the grass that comes back after a burn is preferred by the cattle.
More than 92,700 acres burned in prescribed fires between Jan. 1 and June 30 last year, according to a survey of 26 organizations by the Nebraska Prescribed Fire Council.
But conducting these burns requires a lot of planning, post-burn monitoring, money, machinery and manpower. And even when it comes together, a change in weather can cancel the whole operation at a moment’s notice.
In order to conduct a land management burn, a landowner or tenant has to apply for a permit and submit a plan to their local fire chief, who decides whether to waive Nebraska’s open burn ban. By law, the plan requires serious documentation, including a list of on-hand equipment and a description of weather conditions needed to burn safely.
Fairbury Fire Chief Judd Stewart’s jurisdiction is filled with landowners and managers who use prescribed burns. Stewart says he had to cancel almost 50 burn permits in March when Gov. Jim Pillen ordered fire chiefs statewide to temporarily stop issuing them during the wildfires. Stewart wishes the governor would have given more consideration to areas like southeast Nebraska, where fire danger was lower. Those areas still have heavy fuel loads, and the window to burn is closing.
“As we approach mid- to late summer, when we start getting high temperatures … that vegetation will carry fire again, and now we’ve got those heavy fuel loads that are going to be hard to contain,” Stewart said.
Austin Klemm, a board member of the burn group that helped Schneider and others contain the Cottonwood Fire, said he is working with about six landowners who have invested roughly $250,000 to $275,000 to plan a burn that might not happen this year due to the ban.
“Some of these guys have invested tens of thousands of dollars in prep work to be able to burn,” Klemm said. “These guys have deferred grazing, did not graze at all last year, had to go find a place to stick cows or feed cows all last year.”
‘It’s dangerous’
Becky Potmesil doesn’t have to look far to see the devastation wildfire can cause. Potmesil raises cattle in the Alliance area of the Panhandle, on the western edge of the Sandhills. To the south, the Morrill Fire burned an estimated 642,000 acres, making it the largest on record in the state’s history. To the southeast, the Ashby Fire burned another 36,000 acres.
The winds have blown away the black, burnt grass, leaving behind only sand dunes. It looks like a moonscape, she said.
Drought conditions in 2026
“Anybody who’d do a prescribed burn out here in the (western) Sandhills in western Nebraska is crazy, and it’s dangerous,” she said. While she sees how there could be benefits in some Sandhills meadows, she doesn’t think it’s worth the risk in her area.
Moul, the Keystone-Lemoyne fire chief, is cautious about issuing burn permits in his Sandhills district. He likes for there to either be snow or green grass on the ground. The Sandhills have fewer fire breaks, less infrastructure and more extreme weather conditions like high-speed winds than other parts of the state, Moul and Potmesil noted.
Moul, an incident commander on the Morrill Fire, understands that prescribed fire has its place. But after seeing the damage caused by prescribed burn escapes over his career, he said fire chiefs shouldn’t allow them on or right before red flag days in their districts. Most of the burn groups know what they’re doing, Moul said, but a few have convinced local fire chiefs to issue permits on red flag days so they can “get the best kill of the trees.”
“But it was my experience when I worked with the state that we went to a lot of escaped fires because of prescribed burns that got away,” Moul said.
The Road 203 wildfire started as a prescribed burn in the Bessey Ranger District of the Nebraska National Forest. More than a day after the fire ignitions ended, heavy winds created a spot fire outside the original boundary as firefighters mopped up and patrolled the area, according to the Forest Service. The agency said 99.84% of its prescribed burns go according to plan. This one didn’t.
According to the Nebraska Prescribed Fire Council’s survey last year, 1.6% of burns escaped and required outside assistance, primarily from volunteer fire departments. Changing weather patterns and the spread of cedar trees are the primary reasons for escapes, the Fire Council said in an email.
“When the gap between prescribed fire acres and fuel load increases, it also increases fire behavior in both prescribed fire and wildfires causing us to adapt to riskier burns with increased planning and equipment.”
When Twidwell came to Nebraska in 2013, he was told prescribed fire would never be used in the Sandhills. Since then, he has seen multiple burns happen there as the culture continues to shift. Some of this is due to the spread of eastern red cedars in the area.
He knows some landowners will never be convinced, and he understands their concern. But beyond protecting the grasslands, Twidwell believes Nebraska needs to have more conversations on how to mitigate large wildfires by using fire.
“Everybody understands … the wildfire risk playing out,” he said. “Fewer understand the benefits and why certain groups are using prescribed fire.”
NCAA Tournament softball returns to Bowlin Stadium this weekend as top-seeded Nebraska prepares to host its first regional since 2013.
The Huskers enter the postseason ranked No. 1 in both the NFCA and USA Softball polls for the first time in program history. Nebraska (46-6) earned the No. 4 overall seed after a historic season that included both the Big Ten regular-season and tournament championships.
Nebraska opens regional play Friday at 5:30 p.m. CT against Summit League champion South Dakota.
“It’s time to funnel it back down,” head coach Rhonda Revelle said. “We had a good day and a half after winning the Big Ten Tournament where the players could enjoy it, but now it’s time to focus.”
The Huskers bring the nation’s longest active winning streak into the tournament at 21 games and have established themselves as one of the country’s most complete teams. Nebraska owns 10 wins over current top-25 opponents this season, including victories over then-No. 1 Texas and Texas Tech.
A major reason for Nebraska’s success has been its pitching staff, led by back-to-back Big Ten Pitcher of the Year Jordy Frahm and freshman standout Alexis Jensen, the conference’s Freshman of the Year.
Frahm, a former national champion at Oklahoma, enters the postseason as one of the nation’s top two-way players, while Jensen leads all freshman pitchers nationally in wins and strikeouts.
“Coach has really emphasized taking it one pitch at a time,” Third Baseman Samantha Bland said. “We’re trying to slow ourselves down and stay in the moment.”
South Dakota enters with a 20-34-1 record but arrives in Lincoln with momentum after capturing the Summit League Tournament title — the first conference championship in program history.
“Forty-eight years and we’d never won a championship of any kind,” South Dakota head coach Robert Wagner said. “To be the first is really special.”
The Coyotes are led offensively by Brooke Carey, sister of Nebraska baseball player Dylan Carey, while Madison Evans has handled the bulk of the pitching duties this season.
On paper, Nebraska holds the advantage in nearly every category, including offense, pitching depth and postseason experience. Still, the Huskers know the NCAA Tournament leaves little room for error.
“Anything can happen,” Revelle said. “The key is mastering the little things and sticking to what got us here.”
Louisville and Grand Canyon will meet in the regional’s opening game Friday at 3 p.m. CT before Nebraska takes the field Friday night in Lincoln.
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