Nebraska Volleyball player and co-skipper Bergen Reilly recently opened up about dealing with the external pressure ahead of the opening game for the NCAA Championships. Reilly was recently awarded the Big Ten Setter of the Year, as well as the Big Ten Player of the Year award for the current season.
Reilly mentioned how Nebraska Volleyball is not taking anyone lightly, apart from dealing with the pressure to stay invincible. The Huskers recorded a perfect streak of 30-0 to win the Big Ten Conference title this year.
Bergen Reilly Opens Up About Handling the Outside Noise
Reilly sat for a press conference ahead of the season opener for the NCAA Championships alongside co-skipper Rebekah Allick. Allick, Reilly, and Andi Jackson were declared as the skippers for the Nebraska Volleyball team this season.
During the conference, the setter was asked about how she handled the external pressure on the team. Reilly simply replied,
“I mean a little bit, but mostly it’s just kind of that outside noise that we try and not listen to. And even just like throughout the season, it felt like ‘Oh we have to stay undefeated. We have to keep this set streak.’ And at the end of the day again that’s not our end goal.”
“We want to go out there, and we want to play our best volleyball every day and every
night. And whether that’s in the regular season or in the postseason, we want to do the same thing, and we want to go out and win,” she added.
Reilly and Allick will be leading the team in the season opener for the NCAA Championships against the LIU Sharks tonight. The game will be held at the Bob Devaney Sports Center in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Reilly delivered the third consecutive Big Ten title for the Nebraska Cornhuskers since 2023. She also achieved a unique record of winning the Big Ten Player of the Year in the past three seasons as a freshman, sophomore, and junior player, respectively.
Reilly aims to end the long-standing title drought for the Nebraska Volleyball team. The team hasn’t won an NCAA title since 2017, although they came very close on three occasions: 2018, 2021, and 2023, respectively [when they qualified for the finals].
Reilly was part of the Nebraska Volleyball team, which had qualified for the finals of the 2023 NCAA Championships. She was also part of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, which qualified for the semifinals of the 2024 NCAA Championships. However, the Huskers lost by a whisker to the Penn State Nittany Lions, who eventually went on to win the NCAA Championships by defeating the Louisville Cardinals in the finals.
