No. No. 2 Nebraska bounced back from a disappointing ending in set three to eliminate UCLA in Friday night’s Big Ten opener.

The win was the 700th of Coach John Cook’s career at Nebraska. The program recognized its 25th year in Lincoln by handing out Cook bobbleheads to the 8,846 fans at the Devaney Center and playing messages from former players on the video board during intermissions.

“I blocked it all out,” Cook said. “I didn’t even know it was the 700th win, so I didn’t know that. Of course, we did all the bobble stuff a few days ago… Here’s how I look at it: Our marketing department does a great job of making everything fun for our fans, for our team, for the University of Nebraska athletic department. They do really cool things… They do a great job of connecting people to our program, so hats off to them.”

On the court, Nebraska (11-1) handed new conference foe UCLA (6-4) its first loss in the Big Ten League, 25-22, 25-10, 23-25, 25-22. The Huskers looked well on their way to an easy sweep before the Bruins rallied to give Nebraska the win in game four.

“I thought it was a typical Big Ten game,” Cook said. “You can’t take anything for granted. It’s never over until it’s over and it will remain that way for the next ten weeks. I thought UCLA played great in game three and took all the momentum away from us. You can lose it so quickly, just as you can gain it so quickly. But we responded well in game four and I thought we played good volleyball, but in the end we really took it to the next level there.”

Taylor Landfair came off the bench to post a Nebraska career-high 13 kills on .414 hitting and four blocks.

“One of my favorite things about having her on the field is just her behavior,” Rebekah Allick said of Landfair. “So whether it’s after a mistake or after a kill, it could be a bounce or a tip, it’s just the same girl every time. And so she just provides that stability, especially when teams are making those kinds of runs. But it’s always great to get those kind of numbers and kills. It’s always exciting to have that; it just shows the talent on our team.”

Andi Jackson tied Landfair for the team lead with 13 kills on .409 hitting and six blocks. Allick matched Jackson with six blocks of his own (two solo) and added seven kills on .538 hitting. Nebraska hit .246 overall.

The Bruins entered the night 22nd in the country in hitting percentage, but Nebraska held them to a season-low of .153. Lexi Rodriguez led the way with 20 digs on the season, while Olivia Mauch added eight.

“Lexi Rodriguez, dude, she’s a machine,” Allick said. ‘I’m mainly replaying this one dig. I don’t remember who hit him, just her calmness: she’s a veteran through and through. We are known for our defense. We’ve been known for our defense for a couple of decades, honestly, but we just realized that having those valuable touches, converting those touches into plays and kills and things like that, is huge.

Neither side was able to create much separation in the first set. Both teams were at an incredibly high pace early on, before exchanging points at 4-0 at half-time. After two early attacking errors by Lindsay Krause, Cook turned to Landfair on the left side.

The back-and-forth continued, but Nebraska used three straight kills to take the lead for good late in the set and held off the Bruins from there. Jackson gave Nebraska a set point with a slide kill, then a successful challenge from Cook gave Nebraska its final point.

The set included seven ties and five lead changes. Nebraska hit .317 and held UCLA to .216. Jackson and Murray led the way with four kills each, while Landfair added three on five swings.

“I’m just going to take every point as is, just because nothing is guaranteed in Nebraska and it shouldn’t be,” Landfair said. “So I make sure that when I compete, I just take advantage of it, and the coach always says, ‘Be the game-changer.’ So that’s my mentality, just because I play for all these guys, and I just care about them so much, and I just want us to be as successful as we can be. I just make sure I’m always locked in. always focused and giving as much as possible at any given moment.”

Landfair started the second set and delivered a kill on the first rally. The Huskers used a 4-0 run to open a 7-2 lead and never looked back, rolling to an easy win. Rodriguez served midway through a 7-0 run to open a 21-8 lead.

Nebraska hit a blistering .611 in the set and held UCLA to minus-.033 in a dominant performance.

“We played great, and that’s how we played last week,” Cook said. “One hundred percent (side-out), you really can’t get better. But that is the sport of volleyball. Last match doesn’t matter. Last point doesn’t really matter. It’s all about the next point, and tonight was a great example of that.”

The Nebraska offense continued to fire on all cylinders in the third set with a 6-2 start that stretched to a 10-5 lead. UCLA briefly fought back to within three with a pair of kills, but the Huskers responded with a 7-2 run to reassert control.

The Bruin block and defense came alive late, however, as Nebraska got into a rut and couldn’t climb out. UCLA scored 10 straight points and Kat Lutz served to take the lead. Nebraska burned two timeouts during the run but couldn’t find an answer. It only ended when Lutz missed her 10th serve, and the Bruins immediately earned the sideout to extend the match to a fourth set.

“It was a complete loss of focus,” Cook said. “We stopped passing the ball, stopped moving the middle, couldn’t kill the ball. Bergen put up some tough sets to try and kill. So we just lost all our rhythm and momentum. That’s thinking the game is over and we’ll just move on. Hopefully we learn a really good lesson tonight.”

Nebraska hit north of .400 for two-thirds of the set, but finished at .102. UCLA hit .170.

Nebraska had to regroup quickly as the fourth set turned into a battle with four lead changes and five ties, the last at 18-18. UCLA missed its serve after tying the knot, then Landfair delivered a kill to put the Huskers ahead by two. The teams traded sideouts the rest of the way until Nebraska earned match point at 24-22. The Huskers then slammed the door shut with a block from Landfair and Jackson.

UCLA outscored Nebraska .209 to .176 with five more kills, but the Huskers took advantage of six Bruin service errors.

Nebraska gets a day of practice on Saturday before returning to the Devaney Center to host No. 20 USC on Sunday night. The Trojans outlasted Ohio State in five in their Big Ten Opener Friday night in Los Angeles. Former Husker Ally Batenhorst led USC with 15 kills

The first service is scheduled for 6:30 PM CT on Big Ten Network.