Watch now: Nebraska isn’t a beach volleyball school, but Jaylen Reyes thinks these four Huskers could hang with the top-10 teams

 One of Nebraska’s most unique sports is back.

The Nebraska beach volleyball team opened its season with two matches on Friday, with the Huskers beating Wayne State 5-0 and Park 4-1.

Nebraska didn’t play beach volleyball last season after the indoor season was moved to the spring. The Huskers’ 2020 beach season was cut short after 10 matches due to the pandemic.

Among the reasons beach volleyball is unique is that Nebraska plays its home matches on an indoor sand court during one of the coldest months of the year. Nebraska plays at the Hawks Championship Center, the school’s indoor football practice facility.

Also, each of Nebraska’s players were recruited to the school for a different sport — indoor volleyball.

And the Husker beach volleyball team doesn’t make any effort to qualify for the NCAA Championship in its sport, conceding that it’s not chasing a tourney berth even before the first match has been played, which is the complete opposite of the Husker volleyball team.

This is the seventh season beach volleyball has held an NCAA championship, and with the sport continuing to grow, the NCAA tournament field has doubled from eight teams to 16.

But Nebraska finishes its beach season well before the NCAA championship (May 4-8) and turns its focus back to training for the indoor season.

Many of the top-10 ranked beach teams are now made up of players that only play beach volleyball, and many of the top programs give out beach volleyball scholarships.

Still, Nebraska coach Jaylen Reyes believes the Huskers have a few players who are good enough in beach volleyball that they’d have a chance to make the lineup for one of the top-10 beach teams.

“I would bet Madi Kubik and Kenzie Knuckles could be pretty good,” Reyes said. “(Freshman) Bekka Allick is kind of a joke in terms of how much she’s actually played and the stuff she can do and how she moves in the sand. There are not a lot of girls who are 6-foot-3 and can jump pretty well and move in this (sand). This stuff is pretty deep. This is Hermosa Beach, California, deep.