by SEATTLE – Husky Nation, with a hat tip to Husker Nation, shattered the UW Volleyball attendance record tonight and sold out Alaska Airlines Arena for the first time in program history, as 9,768 fans came through the doors and filled every seat. The Huskies hung tough in the early going and had the place roaring with another run late, but No. 2 Nebraska was too consistent tonight and swept Washington by a 25-17, 25-11, 25-21 count.
The sold out crowd broke a 10-year-old program record of 8,648 fans from a night in November 2014 when then-No. 5 Washington upset No. 1 Stanford during national player of the year Krista Vansant’s senior season.
Head Coach Leslie Gabriel called the atmosphere “awesome.”
“It was so exciting,” said Gabriel. “I was in my office an hour before doors opened and I could hear the music outside and hear the people lining up. It was really cool. I hope the community comes back and watches us over the next three weeks but it was awesome and the girls were fired up. It was a lot of fun.”
The Huskies (18-6, 8-6 Big Ten) fed off the energy to take a 10-7 lead in the first set and it was tied at 12-all before Nebraska (24-1, 14-0 Big Ten) used a 5-1 run to take control. Set two saw the Huskies fall behind early, 1-6, and never get closer than six points the rest of the set. In the third set, UW was close through the middle part of the set, trailing by two at 13-15 before Nebraska went on a run and reached match point at 17-24, but UW saved four match points to give the crowd a few more thrills before Nebraska won on its fifth chance.
“Nebraska’s a good team and they’re going to force you to play good volleyball the whole night. There were moments where we did good things. I thought Lauren Bays played well, expanding her range in passing. Emoni, this was her second match at outside hitter for us and for her to take some big swings out there was good to see. Kiune had a successful night just doing Kiune things. But in general every skill you can look at and say we wish we had performed a little better.”
Nebraska hit .375 as a team and had 44 kills to 35 for the Huskies, who hit .158 as a team. After serving up 13 aces two nights ago in a win at No. 14 Minnesota, the Huskies could only get one ace off the Huskers, and that came on one of the match points saved late in set three. Nebraska, meanwhile, had five aces and only missed two serves, while the Huskies missed seven. Nebraska also had a 7.0 to 1.0 edge in blocks.
Emoni Bush led the Dawgs with 11 kills. Kiune Fletcher was stellar with nine kills on 17 swings, hitting .471. Audra Wilmes returned to action after missing the past five matches due to injury, and she had nine kills with eight digs, hitting .214. Molly Wilson had 31 assists.
