Purdue made Nebraska grind, but the top-ranked Huskers kept finding another gear when the set tightened.
No. 1 Nebraska handled No. 13 Purdue 25-13, 20-25, 25-19, 25-14 on Saturday at John Cook Arena, moving to 19-0 overall and 8-0 in Big Ten play.
Teraya Sigler paced Nebraska with a career-best 15 kills, while Harper Murray finished with 13. Virginia Adriano added 11, Manaia Ogbechie chipped in 10, and for the first time since 2024, four Huskers reached double digits in kills in a Big Ten match.
The win came with plenty of support behind the attack. Nebraska hit .303, piled up 12 blocks and limited Purdue to a .133 hitting percentage. The Huskers also turned in a season-high 64 digs, with Olivia Mauch setting a career high with 21.
Bergen Reilly filled up the stat sheet with 44 assists, 15 digs and five blocks for her fifth double-double of the season. In the rally-scoring era, she became just the second Husker to post at least 40 assists, 15 digs and five blocks in the same match, joining Kelly (Hunter) Natter, who did it against Penn State in 2017. Andi Jackson led Nebraska with six blocks.
Nebraska seized control early in the first set. After Purdue opened up a 3-2 edge, the Huskers answered with five straight points with Murray at the line. Reilly later fueled another five-point burst, including an ace, to stretch the lead to 14-5.
Purdue trimmed the margin to 19-13, but Reilly returned to serve and closed out the set with the final five points. Adriano finished that frame with five kills, and Nebraska hit .429 with only two attack errors in the 25-13 opener.
The Boilermakers responded in the second. Nebraska fought back from an early 9-6 deficit to tie it at nine, but Purdue then strung together six consecutive points to take control of a tight set. The Huskers cut it to 19-17, yet Purdue finished strong and took the frame 25-20 to level the match.
From there, Nebraska took over.
The Huskers pulled in front for good in the third at 9-8, then pushed the lead to three on back-to-back Sigler kills. Purdue got within 19-18, but Nebraska finished the set with a 6-1 run. Sigler scored three of the final four points in the 25-19 win.
The fourth set was Nebraska at its sharpest. After the score was tied at eight, the Huskers ripped off nine straight points to surge ahead 17-8. They hit .500 in the set, logged 12 kills and five blocks, and held Purdue to .029 in a 25-14 finish.
Nebraska has now won 61 straight regular-season home matches, including 59 at John Cook Arena, and the Huskers picked up their eighth win over a ranked opponent this season.
In Other News...
Oregon Exposed A Nebraska Problem That May Get Worse
Nebraskas offense spent a long afternoon trying to find any kind of rhythm against Oregon and never really did. The Huskers managed 242 yards on 67 snaps, with quarterback Anthony Colandrea doing what he could to keep drives alive, finishing 18 of 33 for 164 yards and a touchdown while adding 38 rushing yards and another score on the ground. Even with that effort, the bigger picture was hard to miss: the run game never got rolling, the passing game lacked separation, and the offense as a whole looked stuck in place.
The issues went beyond one bad outing, too. Nebraskas top running backs were held to 58 yards on 18 carries, the offensive line gave up a sack and five pressures, and four penalties made an already uneven night even messier. Injuries along the line and at running back only added to the concern, while receivers struggled to create the kind of space that can help an offense recover when the ground game is bottled up, leaving a problem that could be even tougher to solve if the same limitations keep piling up. [Read more 🡒]
Nebraska Left Wondering After Two Late Replay Moments Swung Everything
For much of the night, Nebraska had a chance to leave with a statement win before Oregon finally nudged in front with 28 seconds left. The finish came with the kind of replay drama that tends to stick with a team long after the final whistle, starting with a touchdown catch by Kwazi Gilmer that was upheld after officials said there was not enough clear evidence to overturn it.
Then came the other moment that had Nebraska wondering what might have been. A potential late fumble by Isaiah Mozee was not reviewed, and the Cornhuskers kept possession as the game tightened in its closing stretch. In a contest decided by the smallest of margins, those two replay decisions became part of the story almost as much as the score itself. [Read more 🡒]
Nebraska Fans Have One Brutal Debate After Another Late Collapse
Nebraskas recent stretch has left fans stuck in an uncomfortable place: encouraged by how far the program has come, but frustrated by how often close games are slipping away late. The Cornhuskers dropped tight decisions to Indiana and Oregon after holding leads in both, a sequence that has sharpened the conversation around whether the progress under Matt Rhule is real enough to matter when the fourth quarter arrives.
Against Oregon, the offensive issues were impossible to ignore, with nine punts and little production on the ground, even as the defense did enough for three quarters to keep the game within reach. The broader picture still shows a team that has outperformed preseason expectations, but the debate now is whether thats enough when the same late-game breakdown keeps showing up in the toughest moments. [Read more 🡒]