Purdue and Nebraska looking to keep their momentum this weekend

The start of the Big Ten women’s volleyball conference matches is approaching and the teams from the prestigious National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) division continue to prepare for it this weekend with matches around the country.

Among them are Purdue and Nebraska, which will both be at home on Saturday and will look to extend their current winning streaks in the season.

• Watch the Big Ten Volleyball matches live on VBTV.

Purdue will host the Stacey Clark Classic on Friday and Saturday in West Lafayette, Indiana. The Boilermakers will face Southern Methodist (SMU) on the opening day and then will meet either Kentucky or Houston on Saturday, at 19:00 local time (23:00 UTC) – their second match in the event will be streamed live on VBTV for subscribers around the world.

“This weekend we’re going to have three very good teams coming in,” said head coach Dave Shondell. “It’s a new tournament that will go for this year and three more years. We want to set the tone here. I feel good about our team, we’re healthy.”

The Boilermakers started the season with a win over Duke at the Purdue Reamer Club Xtra Special Premier, but then dropped their next two matches in the tournament, to Creighton and Loyola. Purdue bounced back last weekend, when they made the trip to Lawrence to take part in the Kansas Invitational and topped both Kansas and Marquette.

Nebraska, on the other hand, are yet to lose this season and enter the match against Long Beach State, on Saturday, at 19:00 local time (00:00 UTC, Sunday), with six consecutive wins. The last of them was a 3-1 (25-9, 25-13, 23-25, 25-20) triumph over Creighton on Wednesday.

“We're getting better at every match,” head coach John Cook reflected. “We're learning. We have a brutal stretch coming up, with great teams and we have to keep learning. Against Creighton, I think we learned about the sense of urgency we have to need in every point and that we can't go down mentally.”

The Cornhuskers have also featured in the most spectacular moment of the season so far, drawing 92,003 fans to Memorial Stadium on August 30 as part of the celebrations for the ‘Volleyball Day in Nebraska’ and setting a new world attendance record for women’s sports events.

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