Nebraska volleyball stadium occasion attracts 92,003 to set ladies’s world attendance file

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska’s struggle tune begins, “There isn’t a place like Nebraska.” With regards to volleyball, these phrases by no means rang extra true than Wednesday night time.

The Cornhuskers laid declare to the world file for largest attendance at a ladies’s sporting occasion with 92,003 filling Memorial Stadium for his or her volleyball match towards Omaha.

The college took purpose on the file final spring when it introduced it could maintain a daylong celebration of a sport that enjoys immense reputation on this state of fewer than 2 million.

The occasion started with an exhibition between in-state Division II powers Nebraska-Kearney and Wayne State and was adopted by the Huskers’ three-set sweep of Omaha in a regular-season match. Nation artist Scotty McCreery carried out afterward.

The earlier attendance file was 91,648, set throughout a Champions League soccer match when Barcelona defeated Actual Madrid 5-2 on the Camp Nou Stadium in 2022.

Memorial Stadium’s official capability is simply over 85,000 for soccer, however that quantity was increased for this occasion as a result of there have been seats and standing room on the sector.

Followers in crimson and white began their tailgate events exterior the stadium hours earlier than first serve of an exhibition Wayne State received in three units. The stadium was one-quarter full at the beginning of that match and steadily crammed to capability as gamers for Omaha and Nebraska have been warming up.

There was a flyover in the course of the nationwide anthem and, minutes earlier than first serve, coach John Prepare dinner led his Huskers into the stadium to the Tunnel Stroll, the longtime custom of the soccer staff. Synchronized chants of “Go Large Pink!” have been heard throughout.

Situations have been close to excellent: 83 levels, clear skies and a south wind listed at 4-mph at courtroom stage with gusts.

Although 91,648 was broadly acknowledged as the ladies’s sports activities attendance file, not less than one match on the unofficial 1971 Ladies’s World Cup in Mexico Metropolis reportedly drew 110,000 individuals.

The American file attendance for a ladies’s sporting occasion had been 90,185 for the 1999 World Cup soccer closing between the US and China on the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California — the sport the place Brandi Chastain ripped off her shirt after scoring the decisive penalty shot for the U.S. win.

The NCAA doesn’t monitor attendance throughout all sports activities, however affiliate director of media coordination and statistics Jeff Williams mentioned a crowd of 90,000-plus was simply among the many largest for a non-football sport. A 2010 outside hockey sport between Michigan and Michigan State at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor drew greater than 113,000 followers.

A message searching for remark from officers of Guinness World Data was not instantly returned.

Nebraska has bought out 306 consecutive regular-season matches (Wednesday’s occasion received’t rely towards the streak as a result of it isn’t being held on the staff’s Devaney Middle courtroom). The Huskers have led the nation in attendance each season since 2013, and eight of the highest 9 crowds in NCAA volleyball historical past are matches which have concerned Nebraska.

Nebraska has received 5 nationwide championships in volleyball, and its program is likely one of the few in Division I ladies’s sports activities that turns a revenue — $1 million final yr, in keeping with athletic division CFO Doug Ewald.

“This can be a assertion on Title IX, and having two daughters of my very own, what Title IX has completed for girls’s sports activities is big,” fan Troy Pfannenstiel of Omaha mentioned earlier than the matches.

Chancellor Rodney Bennett canceled lessons for the day. Large Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti was available, as was Gov. Jim Pillen. So have been Husker volleyball gamers who have been a part of iconic coach Terry Pettit’s groups over 4 a long time. Highschool groups from throughout a state stretching 430 miles border to frame have been excused from lessons to attend.

There are 75 ladies from the state of Nebraska who’re on Division I volleyball rosters this season. At 44 gamers per million in inhabitants, the state trails solely Hawaii (67 per million) in Division I gamers produced per capita, in keeping with volleyball statistician and historian Wealthy Kern of RichKern.com.

Volleyball has surpassed basketball because the No. 1 women highschool staff sport in the US. It’s lengthy been No. 1 in Nebraska.

About 7,000 women play highschool volleyball within the state. Volleyball has been performed in various kinds in Nebraska because the early 1900s. For a few years, women volleyball matches have been warmup acts for boys basketball video games. Volleyball turned a sanctioned sport in 1972 and took off within the late Seventies when Pettit invited lots of the state’s highschool coaches to work at his camps in Lincoln.

Pettit additionally performed so-called “satellite tv for pc” clinics in small cities throughout the state. In a spot the place boys develop up dreaming of changing into Cornhusker soccer gamers, many women are equally keen about some day enjoying volleyball for a Nebraska staff that yearly ranks among the many nation’s elite.

Ella Beck, 10, got here with a gaggle from tiny Pierce to see her first faculty volleyball match and root for her favourite participant, setter Lexi Rodriguez.

Neveah Kehr, 10, got here together with her mother, Nicki, from Bismarck, North Dakota, to be a part of the occasion. Nicki graduated from Nebraska, and he or she introduced up her daughter watching the Huskers on tv.

Neveah wore the No. 5 jersey of center blocker Bekka Allick at a pep rally earlier than the matches and, with greater than 1,000 followers cheering, was invited to stroll to the place the gamers stood and was launched to the lady she referred to as her idol.

Neveah teared up, and Bekka gave her a hug.