Weeks before Millard South football takes on the field, a different sport plays on the outdoor Buell Stadium, and that sport is Volleyball. This triangular between Millard’s three high schools, Millard South Patriots, West Wildcats, and North’s Mustangs, was unprecedented and marked a unique milestone in women’s high school sports for Nebraska.
We saw an example of a new spotlight on women’s volleyball in August 2023, featuring the Nebraska vs. Omaha match. This match-up set a world record for the largest crowd at a women’s sporting event, with 92,003 fans in attendance at Memorial Stadium. Looking at the bigger picture, Nebraska women’s volleyball became the only profitable public university women’s sports program in the six major conferences in 2022. This spike in popularity cannot only be attributed to volleyball’s high-energy and fast-paced gameplay, but also its dominant fan base and growing media exposure. Specifically, this took hold strongest in Nebraska, where players like Lexy Rodríguez and Harper Murray dominated sports media. It was hard to miss Nebraska Volleyball.
Battle at Buell is a direct reflection of the massive popularity of women’s volleyball in the state. This community-driven initiative brought nearly 4,000 spectators to the stadium. This game was inspired by Nebraska volleyball’s event at Memorial Stadium two years ago. “Ok, outdoor volleyball isn’t new in the state of Nebraska. 2 summers ago, Nebraska kicked off its season with an outdoor volleyball event,” said Millard South’s head volleyball coach, Jaisa Poppleton.
“So when the 3 high school head coaches got together, we kind of kicked around the idea of doing it. That’s when the seed was planted, and we figured it out
In conversation with Throne, he added, “Obviously, the Huskers did it. Everybody went to that 1 and it went great. North’s coach and West’s volleyball coach started talking to me, saying, “We should do that”, and those two conversations started happening.”
Exceeding expectations, the game brought in the largest crowd of spectators in women’s high school sports history for Nebraska. “There was a lot of work. My wife asked me afterwards. ‘Was this work worth all the time now, you guys put in, and to watch our girls get to play on?’ It was well worth it,” said Throne.
“It was awesome for our players and our coaches in our community. It was a great night. We got a great crowd cause Mother Nature was nice.” Throne later hinted,
“Probably the largest female crowd. Or an outdoor crowd for volleyball, in the state of Nebraska, on the high school level, which is incredible”.
“It was definitely really different. The team had like a lot more fun than we normally do. Everyone was yelling. It was really electric. It was definitely different,” said junior Sophia Varn.
“I guess we’re used to not having like a bunch of people, just like being able to feed off the crowd’s energy and like having knowing that you had a lot more support behind do is always really cool.” The game was not only a change-up in women’s Nebraska high school history but also a change-up for the players. “When we beat Millard West in the second set. When we really started beating them, their certain sections just got quiet. It felt really remarkable to look back at this moment. It was really fun and exciting to see the whole community pop out,” said Madi Jacobson.
Even though this memorable round-robin has ended and become history, this event’s impact will remain as one showing the unity of Millard as a district and community for the sport of volleyball.
