Creighton used to drag Nebraska into five. Not on Wednesday.

No. 1 Nebraska swept the Bluejays at a sold-out Pinnacle Bank Arena and pushed the all-time series to 25-0. The Blackshorts made the statement early. The quotes after the match explained how they plan to keep stacking nights like this.

Kenna Cogill’s first real PBA night

Middle Kenna Cogill found out she’d play right before tip. Not a full week to sit with it. Not a clean mental runway. Just show up.

Andi Jackson made sure that part of the story didn’t get lost.

“I think Kenna did amazing,” Jackson said. “I just really want to give her kudos, because what she did was really hard. Learning that you’re playing right before the match, not a whole lot of time to mentally prepare, but we just talked about it in the locker room.”

Jackson kept going, because the point wasn’t only the box score.

“Kenna shows up every day at practice ready to go. She’s always been a huge part of the success on this team. So we’re really proud of her, and it’s a really hard thing that she did, and I don’t think people really understand that unless they play sports. So yeah, Kenna’s incredible. She did awesome.”

Cogill, for her part, didn’t overcook the moment. Asked about match point in front of a packed house, she kept it simple: “It felt really good. Yeah, it was cool.”

The deeper line came when she talked about last year — redshirted, not playing, walking around Pinnacle Bank Arena with a promise to herself.

“It was just so exciting, because obviously, last year, I redshirted, I didn’t play, and I remember looking around, and I was like, okay, one day, I’m gonna go out, and I’m gonna play here, and it’s amazing,” Cogill said. “So just thinking back on that today, it was just super cool.”

That is the kind of Nebraska volleyball story that travels: patient depth, then a night that finally looks like the picture you carried around all season.

Middles with teeth — and a ceiling still up there

Head coach Dani Busboom Kelly has called this the best middles group in the country. Jackson did not duck that.

“I would agree with that,” Jackson said. “I just think that we have so much depth, from me as a senior to Kenna, Manaia, Keoni as a freshman, it is just the talent is so insane.”

She dated the feeling back to the first preseason practice.

“I remember our very first preseason practice, it was so hard to score,” Jackson said. “In that moment, I knew this is a really, really talented middles group, and it’s incredible. Iron sharpens iron. To have an opportunity to go and compete against the three other best middles in the country is a super special thing.”

Then the part Husker fans should like even more: Jackson does not think this group is finished.

“A lot,” she said when asked about room to grow. “I don’t even think we’re close to our ceiling, which is very awesome that we’re in that position. There’s still a ton of room for improvement.”

Busboom Kelly was already talking six-two after the sweep — more firepower in front of the setter, less attacking pressure on outsides like Terraya and Harper, and the ongoing puzzle of getting Laney on the floor as much as possible if Nebraska wants to live in that look. Rotation chess after a clean sweep is a good problem to have.

Why the sweep mattered against Creighton

Jackson refused to treat Creighton like a night you sleepwalk through. Three years of five-set dogfights will do that.

“We worked super, super hard this week preparing for Creighton, and we didn’t want to underestimate them,” Jackson said. “It’s been a dog fight. The last three years that I’ve been here, we’ve gone five with them, so we know that that team can come out hot.”

The plan was blunt.

“The first five points, we wanted to make a statement,” Jackson said. “I think we wanted to prove it tonight, and that was our goal.”

How they tried to prove it: clean up the junk.

“Just picking up everything,” Jackson said. “Not letting tips fall, and not letting any junk balls fall. We wanted to make them earn their points, and so go out with grit, is what we said in the beginning.”

That is Blackshorts volleyball in one word — grit — with the series ledger to match: Nebraska 25, Creighton 0, all-time.

Big Ten next, same mentality

Jackson’s conference message was the same one every ranked Nebraska team eventually has to live with.

“Like we always say in the Big Ten, everyone’s really good,” she said. “We can’t underestimate anyone. So we can have amazing prep, but our mentality going into the game, we have to want to go and take it from them. So that doesn’t change.”

Wednesday night, they took it from Creighton before the night got long. Kenna got her PBA moment. Andi put language on a middles group that already looks special. And the all-time series kept rolling toward a number that still looks unreal until you say it out loud: twenty-five and zero.

— Denny Paulsen covers Nebraska athletics for Carriker Chronicles and The Blackshirts (theblackshirts.com). On X: @DennyPaulsen.