No. 1 Nebraska displayed each ability that’s made it a powerhouse program — the offense attacked each a part of the courtroom, protection by no means gave up on the ball and the followers confirmed up on the Galen Middle.
In entrance of a sellout crowd of 9,072, USC’s nine-match win streak got here to an finish with a straight-set loss to Nebraska (26-0, 16-0 Huge Ten).
“I just felt like the game was a little too fast for us today,” USC coach Brad Keller mentioned. “I thought it was slow for them and fast for us.”
The No. 5 Trojans by no means led and had been restricted to a 20% level scoring share all through the match. USC (20-6, 11-5) led in assaults, however its 16 errors had been pricey in the course of the 25-13, 25-16, 25-20 loss to the Cornhuskers.
USC’s Adonia Faumuina faucets the ball over the web in opposition to Nebraska on the Galen Middle on Sunday.
(Kim Ly / USC Athletics)
“Nebraska is the real deal,” Keller mentioned. “They are really, really good and they showed that today from point one to the very end. They’re hitting .400 and they held us down to .156, that kind of shows you a lot of where they were.
“Go Big Red Nation deserves credit and they deserve the fact that they travel and they support their team.”
USC exterior hitters London Wijay, with 10 kills, and Adonia Faumuina, with 9 kills, stored the Trojans in as a lot as attainable all through the three units. After a break, the Trojans got here out with some additional gusto to make issues a bit fascinating for the Cornhuskers.
“We literally had nothing to lose,” Faumuina mentioned.
In the course of the match, Nebraska made 10 errors, with 5 unfold throughout the primary two units. The Huskers moved the ball rapidly across the courtroom and in the event that they made a mistake, the staff rapidly adjusted. Within the third set, a ball bounced within the air near the ground seats. Nebraska saved the ball and it later led to a kill by Virginia Adrian that put the Huskers three factors from closing out the sport.
Nebraska stored USC guessing, whereas exploiting the weaker USC again courtroom and capitalizing on attacking errors. All through the match, they stored hitting the ball to the again, often leading to a degree for them.
“There were some plays they made that I haven’t seen in a while and that was normal for them,” Keller mentioned.
Because the Trojans look forward to their subsequent match in opposition to Oregon on Wednesday, Keller doesn’t have a silver lining take-away from the loss.
“I love my team, I don’t care what their age is,” Keller mentioned. “There needs to be a standard and we need to execute and if we don’t execute, we go back to the drawing board, we work on those things, we get better and we execute.”
Wijay mentioned the loss uncovered how a lot more durable the Trojans should work to realize their targets.
“I don’t want to brush off this loss,” Wijay mentioned. “I think it’s good to use as fuel for the next game. It was a good test to see how far we are to get to that level. And I feel like the silver lining is to make sure that we’re all gonna be in the gym working even harder to make sure that we pursue the balls.”
“I think it made me more hungry to want to win,” Wijay added.
