They should have swept Nebraska.

Purdue’s last win against the Huskers was 26-24, 25-21, 25-16. Saturday night, they were up 21-12 in the first set, and they won the next two 25-23, 25-17 … not exact, but close enough to count. A strong comeback by fifth-ranked Nebraska gave the visitors the first set, and they took the fourth as well, but a red-hot Boiler start in the fifth sealed the upset and gave the Good Gals an all-important win against an elite team. Combined with Friday’s win over Iowa, it moved the Boilers into a tie for fifth with Michigan heading into a week of games that may see a three-way tie at 7-5 when all is said and done.

#21 Purdue 3, #58 Iowa 1 (20-25, 25-20, 25-16, 25-15)

Purdue started off slowly, giving up all kinds of quality attacks, but slowly closed the door in set two, then slammed it shut in the final stanzas, setting the stage for Saturday’s upset win.

Personnel notes

Purdue appears to be at full strength again, with neither Blake Mohler nor Caitlyn Newton apparently slowed. Ellis seems to have locked down the open OH spot, appearing in three sets and going 5-4-16-.063. With the last two sets becoming easy wins, Shondell opened up his bench, putting in Maddie Koch (4-0-5-.800), Jael Johnson, and Ava Torrance. He also swapped Otec in for Koch and ran a back-row play for Otec on which she got a kill, her second of the season and 12th of her career, although I believe only two have been swinging kills (the rest are the usual DS/libero kills where a bump or free ball goes over and doesn’t get returned).

Game notes

The Boilers came out of the gate flat, as Iowa stayed with them from the start, then opened up an 8-11 lead with an 0-3 run and widened it to 9-13 and 10-15. Shondell called a timeout that sparked a 4-0 run, but at 14-15, Iowa got three back; Purdue cut it to 16-18, and after a timeout at 16-21, got as close as 20-22, but no closer, and after an Iowa timeout, the Hawkeyes scored three straight to end the opening set.

Set two started about the same, as the Good Gals needed an early run just to go up 6-5. At 8-6, the visitors pulled into the lead, first at 9-10 and again at 10-11, but after a Courtney Buzzerio kill for 10-12, Purdue scored six of the next seven points, finally looking like a top-25 team. Iowa took a timeout and stopped the run with a Kyndra Hansen kill, but another 4-1 Purdue run gave the hosts a 20-15 lead and basically put the set out of reach. Iowa would test that, closing the gap to 20-18, but after a Boiler timeout, Purdue scored four of the next five points (with the fifth point missing from Purdue’s PBP, a solo Brie Orr block of Cuttino). A Buzzerio kill fended off the first set point, but Newton and Cuttino blocked her for the second, and the Boilers went into the locker room with a 25-20 win.

Consensus in my section was that the coaching staff gave the Boilers what-for in the locker room (I think that’s John’s job, since IIRC Dave is good-cop to John’s bad-cop), because Purdue came out firing in the third set, jumping out to a 6-1 lead and cruising the rest of the way. At 12-6, a Buzzerio kill, an Ellis attack error and an Orr ace cut the lead in half, but a Newton kill stopped the run, and a Newton/Cuttino block of Buzzerio followed by a Cleveland kill restored the six-point lead and burned an Iowa timeout. The Good Gals would steadily widen the lead from there, getting it to 18-11, then 23-15, and finally 24-15 after Iowa’s other timeout. An Otec service error gave the Hawkeyes their last point in the set, as Cuttino put down a Hayley Bush set to finish it at 25-16.

Set four was more of the same, with Purdue going up 4-0; this time, the only difference was that Iowa immediately stormed back, getting a Hughes kill, two Purdue errors and a Halle Johnston ace to tie it at 4. Seven points later, it was 9-5 Purdue, then 11-6, then 14-7, and we were back to watching a solid team cruise to victory. The first double-digit lead came at 19-9, as the Good Gals scored after Iowa’s second timeout; the visitors would get no closer than eight, and after a Koch kill set up match point #1, she’d get another one to restore the 10-point margin and give the Boilers a 3-1 win.

Iowa actually outhit Purdue in the opening set, .243-.316, but you couldn’t tell by the end of the match, as the scoreboard tipped almost completely in Purdue’s favor: kills (60 at .379 to 44 at .192), assists (55-42), aces (5/-7 to 3/-4), blocks (11.0-4.0) all went their way, with digs (45-46) just barely in the Hawkeyes’ favor.

Grace Cleveland had a record-setting night, hitting .680 with 18 kills on just 25 attacks, topping the four-match record for 20+ attempts set last year by Newton against Northwestern (16-0-24-.667). Newton added 17 at .333, and Cuttino had 10 at .368. Bush led all players with 51 assists, while Otec (-1) and Marissa Hornung (even) had two aces apiece. Mohler recorded Purdue’s only solo block but had just 1.5 overall, well behind Cuttino’s 4.5 (half a block more than the entire Iowa team). Hornung tied for match honors with 18 digs, while Newton completed a double-double with 11.

Iowa was led by sophomore RS Courtney Buzzerio, who had 15 kills at .276; junior OH Griere Hughes (Fishers, IN/Hamilton Southeastern HS) added 11 at .152. Junior setter Brie Orr had a team-high 35 assists, the team’s only solo block, a team-high 2.5 total blocks, plus one (even) of Iowa’s three aces, with junior libero Halle Johnston (-1) and freshman DS Joslyn Boyer (even) serving the others. Johnston equaled Hornung with 18 digs as the only Iowa player in double digits.

#21 Purdue 3, #5 Nebraska 2 (23-25, 25-23, 25-17, 20-25, 15-8)

Just like Purdue’s upset over Kentucky, where the Boilers stormed out in the final set and ran away with it. They didn’t go up 8-0, but they may as well have, reprising their hot start from the first set in a context where a comeback at 21-12 wasn’t possible.

Personnel notes

Standard lineup in place, no subs made an appearance. Marissa did pick up another rare libero kill on a return that Nebraska could not field.

Game notes

At 4-4, the first set seemed a bit better than usual, but there hadn’t yet been a sign of what was to come. At 8-5, John Cook felt something change, and called a timeout; the Boilers rattled off the next four points anyway, and notably, at 11-5, Purdue had 4 points off Nebraska attack errors. The Huskers got within 12-8; this time, it was front-row defense, as three straight blocks by Cuttino and friends keyed a 5-0 run that made it 17-8, and somehow the #5 team had burned both its timeouts and seemed in danger of getting blown off the court. The teams traded points through 21-12 … and the bottom dropped out, as Nebraska blew through two Purdue timeouts en route to an 0-8 run that cut the lead to 1. A Madi Kubik service error finally gave the serve back to the hosts, but a Lauren Stivrins kill made it 22-21. Ellis got one back for Purdue, but they would not score again, as kills from Jazz Sweet and Lexi Sun finished off an 0-4 run that gave the opening set to Nebraska with a score that in no way reflected the way it had played out.

Set two opened on an ominous note, as back-to-back aces from Sun helped the Huskers turn a 1-0 lead into a 1-4 deficit; fortunately, Purdue had a bigger run in store, and once again Cook was forced to call an early timeout, watching the Boilers go up 6-4. The Good Gals weren’t done with run, tacking on 5 more after a Newton attack error to lead 11-5, then scoring two more after a Stivrins kill, and somehow it was 13-6 and once again Purdue looked ready to run away with a set. Again, Nebraska came back, scoring three straight for 13-9, then cutting it to 15-12, 17-15, and finally 18-17, when Shondell had no choice but to call a timeout. Three straight Boiler points spent Cook’s remaining timeout; the sides traded points for 22-18, but then it was NU’s turn for a run, scoring five straight to retake the lead, and at 22-23 during Purdue’s second timeout, we couldn’t help but wonder if this too would be a heartbreaking set loss, and if great play would be overshadowed by an 0-3 match loss. Instead, Cleveland and Newton finished off the set, running off three straight kills to level the match at 1. Even at this point, the teams had scored 48 points each, but somehow the Boilers still felt like the better team.

Set three was yet another page from a script that none of the traveling Nebraska fans wanted to read: 1-0, 4-1, 7-3, timeout Nebraska. (When was the last time Nebraska called timeouts in each of the first three sets against Purdue?) The Boilers continued their hot start after the intermission, increasing the lead to 10-4, before the Huskers finally began to recover, putting together an 0-3 run for 11-8. Again, the Good Gals responded, getting four of their own for 15-8; Cook would hold his timeout until back-to-back points put NU down 19-11, and the eight-point deficit finally forced his hand, but it was too little, too late, as Nebraska would score just twice more on their serve. An Otec ace earned set point for the Boilers, and they made it count with a Newton solo block of Sun. The convincing 25-17 set win felt much more like the way the match had gone to this point, with the Boilers sitting on a 2-1 lead and looking to close it out in four.

As you already know, this did not happen. For perhaps the only time all night, the visitors played a complete set; after the usual Purdue opening point, Nebraska scored four of five to lead 2-4. Then it was 3-6, then 4-8, and while the Huskers did not keep doubling the Boilers, it certainly felt as if they did. That opening salvo proved to be enough to seal the set, as the Good Gals would not even tie again, much less lead. They’d cut it to 8-10, but a 1-3 run opened up a four-point lead again, and Nebraska would widen it to 11-16 before a 3-1 run got the Boilers within three. Late in the set, Purdue made one final run to try to close out the match, but at 18-19 Cook used his first timeout - the only time all night he’d saved one, and accordingly we had the only media timeout of the night in this set at 11-15 - and NU responded with a 1-4 run around both Purdue timeouts. 19-23 proved to be too much; Purdue would get their last point on a Mohler kill, but kills from Sun and Sweet finished it off, and off to set five we went.

Remember how the Boilers played in set three? Here it came again: after a 1-1 start from a Kubik attack error and kill, Newton put Purdue up 2-1. A Kubik ball-handling error made it 3-1, and a Hornung ace to Kubik got the Good Gals a 4-1 lead. I know I wasn’t the only person in the crowd repeating the word Kentucky at this point, and sure enough, Cook used a timeout, only to see a triple-block of Stivrins, an attack error by Sweet, and another Hornung ace to Kubik build an insurmountable 7-1 lead for the Boilers. Nebraska would settle in, getting a three-point run from Stivrins on two kills and a solo block of Cleveland, but a Kubik attack error gave the Boilers the serve again, and Mohler’s kill made it 9-4. Cleveland’s service error and a Kubik ace cut the lead to three, but it felt more like ten - someone unfamiliar with the sport would have picked out Purdue as the top-five team and Nebraska as the young upstart coming close to an upset before watching it slip away. Newton, Bush and Mohler strung together kills to burn Nebraska’s last timeout and push the lead to 12-6; Sun got one back on a kill, but Bush struck again to make it 13-7. Sun had one left, but Cuttino’s kill put a host of match points into Purdue’s collective pocket. They’d only need one, with Cuttino and Cleveland blocking Sun for the final point of the night, and the team rushed onto the floor to celebrate a huge and well-earned upset.

Nebraska had been held under .200 just three times all season, and they’d actually won two of those matches, against Creighton and Michigan State. The Boilers couldn’t quite keep them that low, but .209 was well off their usual pace, as the Good Gals enjoyed an unexpected .255-.209 advantage in attack percentage, despite a 59-68 edge in kills for the visitors. Assists went to Nebraska (51-61), as did digs (65-74) but Purdue had a nice edge in aces (10/+5 to 7/+1), and they had a massive edge in blocks, 16.5-5.0.

Let’s talk about aces for a minute. Ten aces, +5 from the line, in their biggest win of the year. That’s their best aces total since recording 13 at Rutgers last year, and their best ace/error difference since a 12/+5 performance against South Alabama last year. Cleveland led the service parade, serving a career-high 4 (+2). Newton also had a career best with 3 (+1), while Hornung added 2 (+2) and Otec had the other (+1). I’m not sure how often Purdue has had four players positive from the line, and I'll bet it’s been even longer since that happened against top-five opposition.

Newton led the attack with 17 kills despite hitting just .180; her presence opened the way for her teammates, as Cleveland recorded 13 at .242 and Mohler added 12 at .579, with Ellis just missing double digits at 9 (.300). Bush had 48 of the 51 assists and two key kills of her own. The block parade was led by Mohler, who had 2 solos and 5.5 total blocks, both match highs. Cuttino, Cleveland and Newton added 3.0 each, with Newton recording the other solo block. Hornung led all players easily with 26 digs; Otec had 11.

If I told you that junior MB Lauren Stivrins had 18 kills at .361, you’d probably assume the match went poorly for Purdue, but she and one other MB, sophomore Callie Schwarzenbach (8 at .533), were the only Husker attackers above .300. Junior OH Lexi Sun tied Stivrins for match honors with 18 kills, but hit just .191, and freshman OH Madi Kubik again hit double digits against Purdue, but hi just .049 with 12 kills; junior OH Jazz Sweet fell just short of the group with 9 kills, but was held to .097. Sophomore setter Nicklin Hames had a match-high 54 assists and one ace (+1); Kubik (+1) and Sun (even) had two aces each, with junior DS Hayley Densburger (-1) and freshman libero Kenzie Knuckles (Yorktown, IN; Yorktown HS - +1) serving one apiece. Sun, Schwarzenbach and Stivrins all had a solo block, with the latter two adding just a single block assist each for a team-high 1.5, as Nebraska simply couldn’t stop Purdue’s diverse attack at the net. They did their best to dig it out, though, as four Huskers had 11+ digs: Knuckles and Sun tied for team honors with 18, Kubik added 14, and sophomore DS Megan Miller (Alexandria, IN; Alexandria-Monroe HS) had 11, meaning that both Sun and Kubik ended up with double-doubles. Also, in case you didn’t notice, Nebraska doesn’t have any seniors. The 2020 schedule isn’t out yet, but I’ll bet every one of those players is going to remember this match the next time the two teams meet - since the Boilers are slated to lose only Mohler and Cuttino, this could be an epic matchup next season.

Overall thoughts

A young team plays great volleyball for most of a set, but lets a talented opponent up at the end and gives away a set. A composed team goes back out and wins the match anyway. Will composure outweigh youth when it comes to tournament play? We’ll likely have other opportunities to find out - like Sunday, when #6 Minnesota comes to Holloway - but for the time being, let’s enjoy a match where for a change, Purdue not only played to the level of elite competition, they outplayed them.

Conference roundup

Wisconsin is unbeaten at the halfway point, dispatching MSU and Michigan while dropping just one set. Penn State and Minnesota sit just one game back, as PSU took out Illinois in five and swept Maryland, while the Gophers needed all five sets to hold off Michigan and beat the Spartans in four. Nebraska took care of Indiana in four but fell two games off the pace, while Purdue caught Michigan. Illinois remains the hardest team to figure out, collecting their sixth loss against top-10 competition; their lone top-25 wins are vs Marquette and at Purdue, while their losses to Colorado, UCF and Illinois State remain question marks.

Michigan State drops below .500, joining Ohio State, who topped Rutgers in four, and Maryland, who edged Northwestern in five. Iowa got a much-needed five-set win at Indiana to pull two games clear of the Hoosiers; Rutgers caught the latter with a five-set win over Northwestern, the lone winless team in the conference.

Up next

The Boilers look to continue their streak of success against their in-state rivals, but Wednesday’s match could well be a trap - if the Good Gals are looking back at the match in Minnesota and wondering what would have happened if they’d have taken the first set, Sunday is their chance to find out … but they’ve got to beat IU first. Note the earlier start times for both matches, and remember to wear black for the Indiana match.

Sorry, the Wednesday match is on regular BTN, which means if you aren’t watching on TV you have to watch through the Fox Sports app that is crap, just like everything else about Fox. Yes, the BTN+ app is better, hard though it may be to believe. Why did the conference let Fox force them to merge BTN into the Fox Sports app? Well, did you ever know Jim Delany to make a good decision? Do you think his replacement would be any better?

Fortunately, the Minnesota app is on ESPN2 … but of course ESPN’s crappy site doesn’t allow you to bookmark games in advance, because that would be helpful, and ESPN fired all their helpful people because they were tired of paying useful employees. If I remember in time I’ll bookmark it, but I’ve got a vacation coming up (you hush), and I leave Sunday, so …

Wednesday, 6 PM: vs Indiana (TV: BTN; stat tracker)
Sunday, 1 PM: vs Minnesota (TV: ESPN2; stat tracker)

Pics from the Nebraska match courtesy of Purdue Athletics, taken by Dave Wegiel. The feature photo was in a contest for pic of the week, but Texas has a lot of VB fans, so this well-deserving image didn’t get the honor.