FRS stands for Failure Recovery System in Nebraska volleyball and that was clearly on display Friday night during the win over number 14 Arizona State.

The No. 5 Nebraska volleyball team slowed down the speedy Sun Devil offense on Friday night at the Nebraska Classic to earn its third win of the season (25-20, 26-24, 25-19).

“Something we’ve talked about a lot as a team is being each other’s biggest cheerleaders and being great teammates. And coming into tonight, we knew that FRS, our Failure Recovery System, was going to step up and be a big part of tonight’s game,” senior captain Merritt Beason said. “They’re a great team, they’ve got great players, we knew they were going to score, and so it was a question for us, how quickly could we come back and move on when they made those plays?

“I think that’s what I’m most proud of. I think if they did something good throughout the game, we thought, ‘OK, they’re great players, let’s do something good right away.'”

Nebraska (7-1) hit .319 overall with three Huskers recording double-digit kills. Bergen Reilly led the Huskers with 40 assists and 15 digs, her sixth double-double in eight games. The Huskers held the Sun Devils (7-1) to .213 hitting in handing them their first loss of the season, as Lexi Rodriguez contributed 10 digs and freshman Olivia Mauch added nine off the bench.

“You saw another great game,” coach John Cook said. “Both teams played really well, with very few mistakes. It was really high-level volleyball. I’m very impressed with Arizona State and it was a great win for the Huskers. The highlights are that we didn’t give up any aces. They’re a really good serving team, they’ve had more aces than mistakes this year. … The other great thing is that until you play against the speed that they’re going, I’ve never seen a team go that fast, so it took us a while to adjust. … That was a great job by our team to make adjustments and wear them down and slow them down.”

Beason continued her rebound week with her second straight strong offensive performance, posting a match-high 15 kills on .429 hitting to go along with three blocks and an ace. Andi Jackson recorded double-digit kills for the second straight match with 10 on .389 hitting while fellow middle blocker Rebekah Allick added seven kills on .462 hitting and a match-high five blocks.

“It really makes my job easier when I have two middle blockers that kill a lot of balls, because it creates a lot of space for me,” Beason said. “So a lot of credit to those two, because their middles run a lot of schemes and they’re in a lot of different situations and scenarios. I just knew I was going to have a lot of space tonight, so when I had that opportunity, I had to take advantage of it. I think as a team, it was really good on offense, because we were just creative and we knew we had to find ways to get kills, and I think we did that tonight.”

Jackson picked up where she left off on Tuesday, finishing the first five balls thrown her way and finishing with a set-high six kills on seven attempts. Nebraska went out at 90 percent and hit .419, jumping ahead early and holding on the rest of the way to secure a five-point victory.

However, the Huskers didn’t do much to stop the Sun Devils either, as they hit .355 with a sideout percentage of 72%. Arizona State gave Nebraska five free points at the service line without an ace, which helped create a comfortable buffer for the host team.

“I don’t know if we’ve ever done that in an entire game before … Really, really impressive,” Cook said of the sideout ratio. “But that was 72 percent, too. This was like men’s volleyball tonight. It was just going to come down to who could make a couple big plays, because both teams were great.”

The teams continued to outplay each other throughout the second set. Nebraska fell behind 15-12 at the half thanks to a 4-0 run by the Sun Devil, but the Huskers rallied to take a 19-18 lead, prompting the first timeout of the night for both teams. Six more ties and two lead changes followed as Arizona State saved one set point, but the Huskers closed it out on their second try with a kill from Beason.

The senior captain took over the second set with seven kills on nine error-free swings as Nebraska hit .294. Arizona State doubled its attacking errors with six in the set (including three Nebraska blocks), hitting .227. In total, the set saw 18 ties and eight lead changes.

Nebraska used a 5-0 run with Lindsay Krause at the service line early in set three to take a four-point lead, but Arizona State came back to take the lead at 11-10 with a 5-2 spurt. Nebraska responded with three straight kills — one each from Allick, Beason and Krause — to regain the lead, and the Huskers held on to the lead the rest of the night. Nebraska won seven of the final 10 rallies to complete the sweep.

After a slow start to the match, Harper Murray finished strong with six kills in the third. Nebraska nearly doubled Arizona State in kills, 19 on .271 to 10 on .106. Arizona State’s up-tempo offense gave Nebraska’s defense trouble early on, but the Huskers eventually settled in and kept the Sun Devils in check as the match progressed.

“I think it just takes a little bit of time to figure out how to block them and how to dig them,” Cook said. “Both teams, it’s tough to play at the level that we played at for so long. You’re looking at an hour and a half of that, playing at that level. It ended up being a really high level, but I think our blocking and our defense started to take care of some things. We got some touches and we converted.”

Nebraska makes a quick turnaround as the Cornhuskers return to the Devaney Center on Saturday afternoon to close out the Nebraska Classic against Wichita State.

The Shockers lost their first two games of the tournament, 3-0 to Arizona State and 3-1 to Long Beach State. Wichita State is the fourth straight Husker opponent to feature at least one Nebraska native on the roster, with defensive specialist Katie Galligan (Elkhorn South) and middle blocker Haley Wolfe (Elkhorn) playing for the Shockers.

First service is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. CT on Big Ten Plus.