Nebraska’s battle tune starts, “There is no place like Nebraska.” Relating to volleyball, the ones phrases by no means rang truer than Wednesday night time.

The Cornhuskers laid declare to the arena report for greatest attendance at a girls’s wearing tournament with 92,003 filling Memorial Stadium for his or her volleyball fit in opposition to Omaha.

The college took attempt on the report utmost spring when it introduced it will reserve a daylong birthday celebration of a recreation that enjoys massive reputation on this condition of fewer than 2 million.

“We took a chance by playing in Memorial Stadium, and to go for the record and break it. … I don’t think anybody could have envisioned that when this whole thing started,” Nebraska lecturer John Prepare dinner mentioned. “It feels like a great accomplishment for this sport called volleyball played by women. It’s a state treasure. We proved it.”

The development started with an exhibition between in-state Section II powers Nebraska-Kearney and Wayne Environment and used to be adopted by means of the Huskers’ three-set sweep of Omaha in a regular-season fit. Nation artist Scotty McCreery carried out in a while.

The former attendance report used to be 91.648, poised all the way through a Champions League football fit when Barcelona defeated Actual Madrid 5-2 on the Camp Nou Stadium in 2022.

Memorial Stadium’s professional capability is solely over 85,000 for soccer, however that quantity used to be upper for this tournament as a result of there have been seats and status room at the grassland.

Enthusiasts in purple and white began their tailgate events out of doors the stadium hours earlier than first lend of an exhibition Wayne Environment received in 3 units. The stadium used to be one-quarter complete originally of that fit and steadily crammed to capability as avid gamers for Omaha and Nebraska had been warming up.

There used to be a flyover all the way through the nationwide anthem and, mins earlier than first lend, Prepare dinner led his Huskers into the stadium to the Tunnel Proceed, the longtime custom of the soccer crew. Synchronized chants of “Go Big Red!” had been heard throughout.

Statuses had been 83 levels, sunlit skies and a south air indexed at 4-mph at court docket stage with gusts that every so often moved the ball in unpredictable techniques.

Although 91,648 used to be extensively stated as the ladies’s sports activities attendance report, a minimum of one fit on the unofficial 1971 Ladies’s Global Cup in Mexico Town reportedly draw 110,000 population. 

The American report attendance for a girls’s wearing tournament have been 90,185 for the 1999 Global Cup football ultimate between the USA and China on the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California — the sport the place Brandi Chastain ripped off her blouse later scoring the decisive penalty shot for the U.S. win.

The NCAA does no longer monitor attendance throughout all sports activities, however worker director of media coordination and statistics Jeff Williams mentioned a community of 90,000-plus used to be simply a number of the greatest for a non-football sport. A 2010 outside hockey sport between Michigan and Michigan Environment at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor drew greater than 113,000 enthusiasts. 

A message in search of remark from officers of Guinness Global Data used to be no longer instantly returned.

Nebraska has offered out 306 consecutive regular-season fits. (Wednesday’s tournament received’t rely towards the streak as a result of it’s not being held at the crew’s Devaney Heart court docket.) The Huskers have led the family in attendance each and every season since 2013, and 8 of the supremacy 9 crowds in NCAA volleyball historical past are fits that experience concerned Nebraska.

Nebraska has received 5 nationwide championships in volleyball, and its program is among the few in Section I girls’s sports activities that turns a benefit — $1 million utmost time, in keeping with athletic segment CFO Doug Ewald.

“This is a statement on Title IX, and having two daughters of my own, what Title IX has done for women’s sports is huge,” fan Troy Pfannenstiel of Omaha mentioned earlier than the fits.

Chancellor Rodney Bennett canceled categories for the while. NCAA President Charlie Baker, Large Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti had been available, as used to be Gov. Jim Pillen. So had been Husker volleyball avid gamers who had been a part of iconic lecturer Terry Pettit’s groups over 4 many years. Highschool groups from throughout a condition stretching 430 miles border to frame had been exempt from categories to wait.

There are 75 girls from the condition of Nebraska who’re on Section I volleyball rosters this season. At 44 avid gamers in step with million in community, the condition trails most effective Hawaii (67 in step with million) in Section I avid gamers produced in step with capita, in keeping with volleyball statistician and historian Lavish Kern of RichKern.com.

“You don’t think you’re going to be part of a world record event, and seeing how much everyone supports volleyball and wanted to be part of that record is awesome to see,” Omaha’s Shayla McCormick mentioned.

Volleyball has surpassed basketball because the Deny. 1 women highschool crew recreation in the USA. It’s lengthy been Deny. 1 in Nebraska.

About 7,000 women play games highschool volleyball within the condition. Volleyball has been performed in various methods in Nebraska for the reason that early 1900s. For a few years, women volleyball fits had been warmup acts for boys basketball video games. Volleyball become a sanctioned recreation in 1972 and took off within the overdue Nineteen Seventies when Pettit invited most of the condition’s highschool coaches to paintings at his camps in Lincoln.

Pettit additionally carried out so-called “satellite” clinics in mini cities around the condition. In a park the place boys develop up dreaming of changing into Cornhusker soccer avid gamers, many women are similarly enthusiastic about some while enjoying volleyball for a Nebraska crew that every year ranks a number of the family’s elite.

Ella Beck, 10, got here with a bunch from little Pierce to peer her first faculty volleyball fit 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 development. Nicki graduated from Nebraska, and he or she introduced up her daughter gazing the Huskers on tv.

Neveah wore the Deny. 5 jersey of center blocker Bekka Allick at a pep rally earlier than the fits and, with greater than 1,000 enthusiasts cheering, used to be invited to travel to the place the avid gamers stood and used to be offered to the lady she known as her idol.

Neveah teared up, and Bekka gave her a hug.

Reporting by means of The Related Press.

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