This post was updated Nov. 20 at 10:35 p.m.

UCLA women’s volleyball (15-11, 9-7 Big Ten) fell to No. 1 Nebraska in front of a record-breaking 10,498 spectators at Pauley Pavilion on Friday night. Although the match ended in a 3-1 loss, the Bruins walked off celebrating after snagging a set off the nation’s best. Daily Bruin Sports staffer Chloe Agas shares five takeaways from a bizarre yet defining night against the Huskers.

Maggie Li or bust

It had to be Maggie Li.

In a season where the Bruins have struggled to solve the Big Ten equation, the junior outside hitter has become the offensive constant. Li didn’t just help crack a Husker defense – she kept the Bruins in contention.

Li registered 20 kills of the Bruins’ 55 that night. At a .333 clip, Li also tallied a season-high in kills against arguably the most suffocating defense in the country.

But that performance wasn’t an anomaly – it was expected.

Prior to her arrival in Westwood, she started every match in her two seasons at California. She earned Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, All-Pac-12 team honors and became the first in program history to earn VolleyballMag’s All-American honorable mention in her first collegiate season. She followed that with a sophomore campaign where she posted 463 kills – the second-highest in conference that year – while averaging 4.06 kills per set.

If senior outside hitter Cheridyn Leverette is the foundation of the Bruins’ offense, then Li is the heartbeat.

There’s a reason why the Bruins even stayed afloat against the nation’s top gun.

Li was the reason.

Showed up and showed out

A record was broken at Pauley Pavilion on Friday night.

10,498 people filled the stands – a feat rarely achieved at Pauley Pavilion in recent times – to watch the match unfold. But it seemed the Huskers also brought their fanbase with them, as most of the stands were filled with scarlet and cream, not blue and gold.

The crowd came and did its part – and shockingly so did the Bruins.

Before touching down in Westwood, the formidable Huskers force recorded 15 consecutive sweeps with an offense that had a .915 assist-to-kill conversion rate and a defense that accumulated 206 blocks across 24 matches. An inconsistent Bruin pack against a consistent Huskers squad seemed like a recipe for disaster.

Though the Bruins did not break the Huskers’ match winning streak, they did something that no other squad has been able to do in the last two months. For the first time since Sept. 16, Nebraska dropped a set, snapping a 48-set win streak in front of a record crowd.

In a season of inconsistency, that third set was the one moment where everything finally clicked.

The Bruins managed to hold the Huskers to a .190 clip while hitting .364 – their highest mark of the night. This set demonstrated the level of execution UCLA has been trying to replicate all season.

With how the Bruins celebrated after the third-set win, you would think they won the national championship. They stepped off the court smiling even after an ill-fated ending.

This wasn’t just one set. This was proof that the Bruins have the components to succeed – they just need to keep the pieces together.

Nebraska was the wake-up call UCLA needed

The ending felt predictable, with the Bruins already down by two sets. The Huskers seemed like they were about to cruise into their 16th consecutive straight sweep after taking a 6-1 lead in the third frame.

Or so it seemed.

The wake-up call wasn’t the Huskers’ dominance, but the Bruins realizing they could respond to it.

It barely even looked like a comeback was looming.

But when Li struck three consecutive kills at 8-4, the energy shifted. Leverette – who ended the match with 17 kills, the second most that night – pierced the Husker defense with three more to even the set at 10 apiece.

If that wasn’t strange enough, what came next flipped the entire match on its head.

Coach Alfee Reft’s unit managed to hold the Huskers to a .190 clip – one of its lowest single-set marks all season – and even held a seven-point lead against the Huskers at 23-16 in the frame.

It felt like a plot twist no one saw coming by the time Li struck the final kill.

Not Nebraska.

Not UCLA.

Not even the 10,498 spectators could have predicted that the Huskers’ first dropped set in their conference campaign would come from the team sporting blue and gold.

And this wasn’t the first time the Bruins stepped up against top-ranked teams this season. UCLA has already recorded victories against then-No. 15 Penn State, then-No. 14 Minnesota and then-No. 22 USC. Friday’s match against Nebraska only reinforced the squad’s potential.

Facing the nation’s best didn’t break the Bruins.

It sharpened them.

Nebraska rang. And UCLA answered.

A loss that felt like a win

Even as I’m writing this, it feels like the Bruins won in straight sets. And make no mistake, they have kept me on edge all season.

But the match against Nebraska was the one that tipped the scale for me.

How often does a team lose 3-1 and look genuinely happy walking off the court?

UCLA had more kills to end the night than Nebraska, with three players – Li, Leverette and redshirt junior middle blocker Marianna Singletary – posting double-digit tallies. The defense also recorded 59 digs in comparison to Nebraska’s 48, with three players – Li and sophomores libero Lola Schumacher and setter Kate Duffey – notching at least 10 digs each.

Meanwhile, Nebraska posted 12 attack errors and posted a .299 overall clip – one of its lowest marks all season.

The numbers don’t lie. The Bruins demonstrated that the No. 1 Huskers are not an unstoppable force.

Sure, losses can hurt. But in this case, the loss gave us a taste of what Reft’s crew is capable of.

It wasn’t a win, but it was the closest to the version of the Bruins that finally looked consistent.

Dare I say … peaking at the right time?

UCLA has yet to qualify for the postseason in the Reft era.

If you told me earlier in the season, I’d say it’s not happening. But after what I saw in the team’s performances this past weekend against both Nebraska and Rutgers, I think it’s okay to be a little hopeful in this final stretch.

It’s not everyday you take a set from the nation’s best, break attendance records, hit season-high numbers and force a juggernaut into its first stumble in two months.

But that was still just one set in one match. There’s a lot of uncertainty with just four matches left in the regular season. If the Bruins want to continue their campaign past November, they’ll need to prove the version of themselves that showed up in that third-set against the Huskers wasn’t just a one-hit wonder.

And with no more ranked opponents left in their conference slate, the Bruins have a small window to capitalize on potential wins – if they can avoid slipping into old habits.

Old habits die hard, but there’s no room for flukes. Who knows where the cards will land? But if the Bruins still needed a reason to believe, they finally found one.

For now, let’s savor this little bit of magic while it lasts.