In theory, Sydney Anderson knows it sounds so automatic.

Nebraska's volleyball players charge onto the Qwest Center Omaha court. They hear the roar of a huge crowd, an audience bigger than most who play this sport will ever see.

The atmosphere shoots an already talented group of Huskers into the stratosphere, and the team on the other side of the net doesn't have a prayer.

But Anderson said Nebraska can't afford to be cocky. Every match a team plays needs to serve as a lesson, and the star setter said the Huskers better have learned a big one last December in Seattle.

It was just a year ago when Washington hosted Nebraska in an NCAA regional final. The Huskies couldn't polish off the Huskers after winning the first two sets. And much to the amazement of the 5,300-plus in attendance, the home team couldn't even seal the deal after working out a 9-3 lead in game five.

“We're really excited to get to play at the Qwest, but it's also a dangerous thing to be thinking about too much,” Anderson said. “Washington — we beat them, and you know they were thinking, ‘We're at home, we have our crowd, we're in our gym' — all of that. We can't come into Omaha thinking that way. I think we have to be really careful with how we approach the regional.”

For the first time since 2005, Nebraska this weekend gets a shot to lock up a spot in the final four playing in its home state. The seventh-ranked Huskers take on No. 5 Iowa State tonight at Qwest Center Omaha, a match that follows the first NCAA regional semifinal between Texas A&M and second-ranked Texas.

Friday's winners face off in Saturday's regional final, and they'll play for a spot in the Dec. 17 national semifinals in Tampa, Fla. Two wins in Omaha would have Nebraska playing in the final four for the fourth time in the past five years.

“We've been talking all year that if we get to Omaha, special things can happen,” Nebraska coach John Cook said. “We have a lot of good memories at the Qwest. It's ‘Coliseum East,' that's what we like to call it.”

The Huskers first started playing matches at Qwest Center Omaha in 2005, and up until a year ago, they looked unbeatable in the arena. During the past three seasons, they overwhelmed the likes of Stanford, Hawaii, Florida, UCLA and Penn State there, and Nebraska celebrated its last NCAA title in 2006 in downtown Omaha.

NU's Qwest Center record fell to 13-1 last year, when the Nittany Lions needed a late fifth-set push to overcome the Huskers in the NCAA semifinals. That match, even though Cook's team lost, will still go down as one of the most remarkable efforts in the history of the program.

A far more forgettable performance came at this year's AVCA Showcase, when a rattled group of Huskers opened the season with a surprising three-set loss to Michigan on Aug. 28. Nebraska bounced back the next night, topping Minnesota in five sets and moving its Qwest Center record to 14-2.

But even though the past few performances in Omaha haven't been slam dunks for Nebraska, Kori Cooper said the Huskers aren't looking to redeem themselves this weekend. All NU wants to do, the senior said, is play the absolute best volleyball it can in hopes of keeping the season alive.

“It's all about trying to win one game at a time, and trying to be two points and three games better in every match,” said Cooper, an All-Big 12 middle blocker. “We're not looking to reclaim anything, because the Qwest still feels like home. We can't wait to play there.”

Iowa State is enjoying the best season in program history under fifth-year coach Christy Johnson-Lynch, the All-America setter at Nebraska in the 1990s. The Cyclones, who were 0-75 all-time against the Huskers entering 2009, finally overcame that history with a dramatic five-set win on Oct. 21 in Lincoln.

Nebraska returned the favor on Nov. 7, when the Huskers rolled into Hilton Coliseum and routed ISU in three sets. NU now has swept its past nine matches and looks like one of the most dangerous clubs in the country heading into the weekend.

But since losing to the Huskers, the Cyclones also haven't dropped a set while winning seven straight.

All of that background, and all of NU's success in Omaha, Johnson-Lynch said, will make for a most fascinating showdown tonight. And the coach said she's as curious as anyone to see how it all shakes out.

“No question, we have a really daunting task ahead of us,” said Johnson-Lynch, a Millard North graduate. “Nebraska basically is playing on their home court, and they're just playing really, really well right now. We're just going to have to put out a great effort and see what happens.”

Contact the writer:

444-1207, chad.purcell@owh.com