Big Ten teams start their season this weekend

The women’s volleyball teams of the Big Ten Conference will officially begin their season this weekend, as all 14 programs will be in action in non-conference matches and tournaments around the country between Friday and Sunday.

Two of these encounters, involving former Big Ten champions Nebraska and Purdue, will be streamed live on VBTV, marking the start of the calendar of matches that will be available on the platform from August to November.

• Watch the Big Ten Volleyball matches live on VBTV.

The two matches will start at the same on Friday, at 19:00 ET (23:00 UTC), with Nebraska hosting Mountain West’s Utah State in Lincoln and Purdue playing at home against Atlantic Coast Conference’s Duke in West Lafayette, Indiana.

The match against Utah State will be one of three that Nebraska will play this weekend as part of the Ameritas Player Challenge. The Cornhuskers will also face Lipscomb on Saturday and Southern Methodist University (SMU) on Sunday.

Friday’s encounter will be the first opportunity for fans to see Nebraska’s highly-anticipated freshman class in action in a competitive match. In 2023, the Cornhuskers managed to recruit four members of the USA national team that took bronze at the 2021 FIVB Volleyball Girls’ U18 World Championship – setter Bergen Reilly, opposite Caroline Jurevicius, outside hitter Harper Murray and libero Laney Choboy.

Most of them had good performances at last week’s Nebraska’s Red-White intrasquad scrimmage as Reilly tallied a match-high 36 assists, Choboy led in passes with 26 and Murray ranked second in kills with 13.

Purdue, who were sixth in the Big Ten Conference last season, will also have a busy weekend, facing Duke on Friday, Creighton on Saturday and Loyola Chicago on Sunday as part of the Purdue Reamer Club Xtra Special Premier tournament.

The Boilermakers also held an intrasquad scrimmage as part of their preparations last weekend and will have a strong core of returning players this season, which includes the 2022 Big Ten Freshman of the Year, outside hitter Eva Hudson, and All-Big Ten Second Team selections Maddie Schermerhorn (graduate student libero) and Raven Colvin (junior middle blocker).

Purdue’s squad will feature six freshmen in 2023 and one of them is outside hitter Chloe Chicoine, another bronze medalist of the 2021 U18 World Championship with the American national team, who was recently awarded as the Most Valuable Player in the country’s victory at the 2023 U21 Pan American Cup.

Other Big Ten teams in action this weekend include defending champions Wisconsin and Minnesota, who will both compete in the Big Ten/Big 12 Challenge in Minneapolis, Ohio State, who will appear in the NKU Tournament in Highland Heights, Kentucky, and Penn State, who will be tested at the Tampa Bay Invitational, in Florida.

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