ESPN College Sports

SAN ANTONIO -- The game that college volleyball has wanted all season will finally materialize.

No. 1 Nebraska and No. 3 Washington will meet Saturday night (ESPN2, 6 ET) for the women's national championship. The season really shouldn't finish any other way.

Both teams advanced with crushing victories -- by eerily similar scores -- in Thursday's NCAA semifinals at the Alamodome, continuing a trend for both teams that has marked the tournament so far.

No. 1 seed Nebraska (33-1) crushed Santa Clara with a potent offensive attack in a 30-24, 30-19, 30-21 triumph that delighted a loud crowd of 7,931 that was dominated by red-clad Cornhusker fans.

And Washington (31-1) produced a similar systematic effort in a convincing 30-25, 30-19, 30-21 victory over Tennessee in Thursday's first semifinal game.

It continued a streak of 15 consecutive victories for both the Cornhuskers and Huskies, who have claimed consecutive sweeps throughout all five games in the NCAA Tournament so far.

During most of the season, Nebraska was ranked No. 1 in the CSTV/AVCA Coaches Poll. Washington was second despite a school-record 23-game winning streak to start the season before losing at UCLA on Nov. 12.

"I guess this will be the dream matchup," Washington coach Jim McLaughlin said. "We'll like to play them. They're good and they've handled people, but so have we."

Nebraska was pictured in a front-page graphic in Thursday's edition of the San Antonio Express-News as King Red, lording over the rest of the sport like King Kong.

"We are a very dominant volleyball team," sophomore setter Maggie Griffin said, chuckling. "I don't know if King Kong is a good analogy, but we've done pretty well so far."

The Cornhuskers turned in a dominant offensive performance against the outmatched Broncos on Thursday night, producing a hitting percentage of .449. It was the Cornhuskers' second-best effort of the season in that statistic. For good measure, they committed only seven errors and recorded the first eight blocks of the game.

The Huskers' strong effort caught the attention of Santa Clara coach Jon Wallace, who was amazed by Nebraska's offensive prowess.

"Wow … Nebraska hit almost perfect," Wallace said. "Seven errors in a match [is] amazing to me. They look focused, they look dominant and [ready] to take care of business on Saturday night."

Nebraska coach John Cook, a one-time high school football coach, compared the Cornhuskers' systematic performance Thursday night in terms of the kinds of offensive games that the Nebraska football program once consistently produced.

"In the old era, it would be like running for 450 or 500 yards," Cook said. "Everything was clicking, no turnovers and lots of yardage and moving up and down the field. I was shocked when I saw the stats. We did a nice job tonight."

	“	I guess this will be the dream matchup. We'll like to play them. They're good and they've handled people, but so have we. ”
		—Washington coach Jim McLaughlin

But the new dynasty around Lincoln is the volleyball program. The Cornhuskers have come into the tournament with the swagger that Tom Osborne's teams once had after being ranked No. 1 in the coaches' poll during the entire season.

Of course, Washington can play a little bit, too. And the Huskies have noticed that Nebraska is intent on snatching a title that has been dominated by Pac-10 teams since the Cornhuskers' last national title in 2000.

In an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer last month, Washington outside hitter Sanja Tomasevic questioned Nebraska's worthiness as the nation's top team. The Huskies were 20-0 at the time and had a legitimate claim for the top spot after being No. 2 most of the season.

"We know we're better [than Nebraska]," Tomasevic told the newspaper. "We know if we do everything we should, we know we're going to crush them."

Through the magic of the Internet, Nebraska players were made aware of Tomasevic's boasts several days later.

"We did read an article about that," Griffin said. "Coach Cook sent it to us. We do have a little tiff with Washington, thinking they should be No. 1 after we've been No. 1 all year. We're going to bring it Saturday night."

In addition to being ranked behind the Cornhuskers, the Huskies said they were fueled by the disappointment of last season's semifinal loss in the Final Four to eventual national champion Stanford.

"Last year was tough," senior outside hitter Brie Hagerty said. "We said we were going to come back and make it to the second night. We're on a mission right now."

Washington dominated Thursday's game against the Lady Vols in a different way than Nebraska, using finesse where the Cornhuskers used raw power. Washington never fell behind by more than two points in the 81-minute match. It marked the 27th three-game sweep among the Huskies' 31 victories this season.

Washington is on the cusp of earning the first volleyball championship in school history after years as a former underdog. Just five years ago, the Huskies finished last in the Pac-10.

Now, they are the two-time defending champions of the nation's toughest conference, under the direction of McLaughlin, a one-time surfing partner of actor Sean Penn during their teenage years in Malibu, Calif.

Earlier in the season, Arizona State coach Brad Saindon called the Huskies the best college volleyball team he has ever seen. Washington will get to prove that Saturday night against the Cornhuskers.

"We're excited but we're pretty steady," Hagerty said. "We know we aren't done, so we can't too excited and caught up in everything. We aren't done and still [have to] take care of business."

In order to claim that title, they will have to beat a Nebraska team that has been compared by Cook to a Hummer. The Cornhuskers have rolled through the tournament so far, but will be facing their toughest test on Saturday night.

"You saw the Hummer sputter a few times early tonight, but you could see as the match wore on that Santa Clara just kind of wore down," Cook said. "The Hummer just keeps going right along. You can see by the scores that Santa Clara got fewer points as the game went on. Mentally, it's just hard to play against us."

Tim Griffin covers college sports for the San Antonio Express-News.