Huskers Advance to National Championship Match

San Antonio ? Senior All-American Melissa Elmer led three players in double-figure kills by pounding a match-high 13 kills on .647 hitting ? tying for the fourth-best postseason mark in NU history ? as the No. 1 Nebraska volleyball team advanced to the fifth championship match in program history with a 3-0 sweep of Santa Clara (30-24, 30-19, 30-21) in front of 7,931 fans at the Alamodome Thursday evening.

The Huskers will look for their third national title and first since 2000 on Saturday at 5 p.m. in a match televised live on ESPN2. The Huskers ? backed by over 4,000 fans who made the trip and another 2,500 at the Devaney Center in Lincoln, will look to become only the third team in NCAA history to be ranked No. 1 from wire to wire.

Standing between Nebraska and the national championship is No. 3 seed Washington. While the Huskers (33-1) have lost only one match in 2005, the Huskies have also tasted defeat just once in compiling a 31-1 record. Both NU and UW have also swept all five of their NCAA Tournament opponents.

NU hit a blistering .449 on the evening Santa Clara (27-5) and dominated the net, winning the blocking battle 12.5 to 2. The .449 attacking percentage was Nebraska’s best in a postseason match since 1998 and just off the school postseason mark of .486 against Morgan State that season. The Huskers also out-dug the Broncos, 36-34, and held Santa Clara to .145 hitting.

Elmer’s 13 kills marked the first time that the first-team All-American had led the Huskers in kills, while Sarah Pavan and Christina Houghtelling had 11 and 10 kills, respectively, as both hit over .400 in the sweep, NU’s 26th sweep of the year.

The Huskers came out firing in game one, hitting .387 in the opener in posting a 30-24 victory. Houghtelling led the balanced attack with four kills, as five players recorded multiple kills in the opener, but Nebraska did most of its damage at the net. NU outblocked Santa Clara, 6-0, as Tracy Stalls and Melissa Elmer had three blocks apiece. The Huskers built a 9-4 lead after a Sarah Pavan kill, but Santa Clara came back with four straight to get within 9-8. Nebraska answered that run with four straight points, building a five-point lead. Trailing 19-14, Santa Clara used a 6-2 run to pull within 21-20, but would get no closer, as the Huskers ran off five straight points and took a 26-20 lead after a Saleaumua ace.

Just as they did in game one, the Huskers never trailed in the second game, hitting .484 in rolling to a 30-19 victory. Elmer shined offensively, drilling six kills and hitting .857, while Pavan had four kills in five swings. Leading 8-7, back-to-back kills by Tracy Stalls triggered an 8-2 run for Nebraska, giving the Huskers a seven-point cushion. Santa Clara whittled the lead to 16-11, but two kills by Elmer and a pair of hitting errors highlighted a 5-0 spurt that made it 21-11, as NU took a 2-0 lead into the locker room.

In the finale, the Huskers closed the match with a flourish, hitting .472 while holding the Broncos to just .146 hitting in a 30-21 win. Saleaumua had five of her seven kills in game three, while Elmer and Pavan had four kills apiece. Leading 12-10, the Huskers put the match away with an 8-1 run, taking a 20-11 lead on a Saleaumua kill. The Huskers led by as many as 11 points, the last at 27-16, and cruised to the nine-point win.

Anna Cmaylo led Santa Clara with 10 kills, while three other players had nine kills apiece.

With the win against Santa Clara, Nebraska tied Florida and Ohio for the Division I lead in wins with 33. Of NU’s 33 wins, 12 have been against ranked teams. The Huskers would lead the nation in victories and capture their third national championship with a victory over Washington on Saturday.