NU Volleyball seeks to make fewer errors

To Nebraska volleyball players, doing a bear crawl means getting down on their hands and feet, pushing their backsides into the air and crawling lengthwise down the court and back.

To NU coach John Cook, it's a way to get his players to focus on the task at hand in practice.

He used this tactic in last Thursday's practice, threatening a bear crawl for the entire team each time a Husker hit a serve into the net.
His players got the message: Not one service error was caused by the net the rest of practice.

"(Serving is) something that we always work on everyday in practice," said junior Tara Mueller. "It's something that you are not going to get in a day or two. You have to constantly work at it everyday and really be disciplined with it."

The service game did not go as well when the Huskers played in front of a packed NU Coliseum crowd in the Red-White game on Saturday, though.

Saturday's game featured some spectacular plays, but also some sloppy moments from the baseline. Eleven different players made service errors during the match. The White team was amid a comeback in the second set when a serve was hit long, giving the set to the Red team (25-23). In the fourth set, there was a stretch when three service errors were made in a row.

All together the Huskers made 22 service errors collectively, a number that wasn't impressive to libero Kayla Banwarth.

"We need to have less missed serves, less errors," she said. "It's just rehearsing it everyday; practicing it everyday. Coach (Cook) always talks about routine. Make sure you have a good routine and stick to that routine. It's just getting repetition and getting comfortable."

Mueller led the Huskers' service game in the Red-White game with two aces, but also accounted for the same amount of errors.

"When you're serving, it's all up to you. You're in control of everything right there," Mueller said. "As long as you trust it and have that confidence about it, then that's it."
Mueller - one of the Huskers' top returning servers - understands the benefit of what a top-tier serving game can do for the team.

"Serving and passing is going to be the most important thing. If you can't serve and pass, that's the game right there," Mueller said. "If we can serve tough and put pressure on the other team and get them out of their system, that gives us that more of an advantage."

Cook said that the serve will be a key to success throughout the season, but knows that the team still needs to improve.

"We've got a lot of work to do on our serve," he said. "We made too many errors."

After Cook's 2008 team finished the year with 234 service errors, he remains optimistic about this year.

Of the final four teams in last year's volleyball championship, only one team - Stanford - committed less service errors than Nebraska. NU's total service errors have decreased over the past six years from when the Huskers committed 316 in 2003.

Nebraska's serving stats may be among the best in the nation, but Cook said he will continue threatening bear crawls until he sees what he likes.

"We had a ton (of service errors) last year," he said. "We can be a great serving club and that's what we are going to strive for and at some point, we will."

dougburger@dailynebraskan.com