There is no easing into the season for the No. 7 Nebraska volleyball team.
The Huskers jump right into the fire when they play No. 2 Stanford in the Runza/AVCA Showcase at 7 p.m. Friday at the Qwest Center in Omaha. They follow that with a 3 p.m. match Sunday against No. 4 Southern Cal.
"I think our players will be excited," Nebraska coach John Cook said. "I'm sure they'll be nervous because that is the biggest venue in college volleyball. But that's why they come to Nebraska. They want to be in those kinds of matches."
Both matches can be seen on NET1 and CBS College Sports.
The Stanford match begins a string of six matches in just over a week. The Huskers will play three matches in the Cal Poly Tournament Sept. 5-6 in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
"We're going to have to grow up fast," Cook said. "I'm just as interested as you guys to see how the team does and how we play. Hopefully in the next week we're going to create our identity and figure out how to be successful. We'll have plenty of opportunities to do that with the competition this weekend."
Big 12 power Texas, ranked third in the preseason coaches poll, will also be in Omaha this weekend. The Longhorns, who are favored to win the Big 12 this season, will play Southern Cal at 9:30 p.m. on Friday and Stanford at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday.
"I think we have the most to gain of all the teams here because we have the most unknowns of the four teams playing," Cook said. "We're going to gain more from this weekend than anybody else. That's how we're going to look at it."
Nebraska senior outside hitter Jordan Larson, who was a third-team All-American last season and a first-team pick in 2006, said win or lose the Huskers will learn a lot this weekend.
"We may lose or we may win. I don't know," Larson said. "It will just be a new and interesting experience for all of us. We have a lot of young players who need to play at that high level to see where we need to be by the end of the season.
"I just hope we go out and compete. In the Red-White scrimmage we kind of had some lulls even though we had better stats than we had last year. I think we just need to go out and compete, play our heart out and show what we can do."
Larson said the Huskers, who were a favorite to win the NCAA title last season after winning it all in 2006, just might surprise some people.
"We have great talent on this team," Larson said. "In 2006, we lost the national player of the year. We pulled some magic and stuff happened. You just don't know. I think this team has great chemistry and wants to work for each other."
Cook has been happy with the work ethic of this year's team. He said strength and conditioning coach Laura Pilakowski put the Huskers through the grinder this summer.
The Stanford match will also be the debut of former Utah setter Sydney Anderson who joined the Husker program this summer after spending a year training with the USA National Team.
But the Huskers were without a setter who was eligible to play in matches during the spring season.
"The hardest thing has been not having a setter," Cook said. "That's the hardest thing is that we don't have the rhythm that we would have had at this time last year. Otherwise, this is Nebraska. We're going to compete and the kids are going to play their hearts out."
Quick Sets
— The four teams in the Runza/AVCA Showcase were a combined 118-14 last season with six of the 14 losses coming at the hands of other teams in the Showcase field. Southern Cal ended Texas' season in the Gainesville Regional final while Stanford beat the Trojans in the national semifinals.
— Nine returning AVCA All-Americans will be in action at the Qwest Center this weekend. Stanfords' Foluke Akinradewo and Cynthia Barbosa were first-team picks along with Texas' Juliann Faucette. Taylor Carice (USC), Ashley Engle (Texas), Destinee Hooker (Texas) and Alix Klineman (Stanford) were second-team picks while Larson and Lauren Paolini (Texas) were named to the third team.
— This is the first time the Runza/AVCA host site will also host the NCAA Championship in the same season.
