Returning to home soil always feels special. It must have been so for USC Trojans’ outside hitter Ally Batenhorst as well. The Trojans exited the 2024 NCAA Volleyball Championship last Friday after being defeated 26-24, 25-20, 25-22 by the defending national champs Texas. However, the former Nebraska Cornhuskers star has other things to look forward to, one of them being going back to her Nebraskan roots.

In November, Ally’s teammates were elated as the grad student was drafted by the Omaha Supernovas, the winners of the inaugural Real Pro Volleyball tournament, for the 2025 season. She just made it official, signing with the Omaha Supernovas. “I’m beyond excited to be drafted and sign with the Supernovas. It’s such a blessing to be able to play professionally in the state near my family, and I can’t wait to play in front of the amazing Nebraska fans again,” Ally said. And why not? After all, she has a celebrated association with the Huskers and that is not only limited to volleyball.

Ally played volleyball for three seasons at Nebraska and helped the Cornhuskers to NCAA runner-up finishes in 2021 and 2023, and a regional semifinal appearance in 2022. For them, she played in 84 matches and saw action in 245 sets. But Ally also played beach volleyball at Nebraska and went 15-5 in 2023 and was 9-11 in 2022 for a career record of 24-16 in two seasons. Her 15-win total in 2023 is the highest in a single season by a Husker player. Despite all these, she is carrying a piece of worry as she leaves for Nebraska, and that has nothing to do with volleyball.

In her TikTok upload from December 10, the former Huskers star noted why leaving California for Nebraska isn’t looking like a bright idea at the moment. “I can’t think about how I’m literally leaving this amazing weather to go back to negative cold,” Batenhorst wailed in her social media update. The volleyball star could be seen soaking in all the sunshine as her days at the USC campus inched closer and closer.

“And I’m going in January,” Ally Batenhorst emphasizes how things will be even more brutal after getting used to the vibrant weather of California. However, the cold probably isn’t enough to dampen Batenhorst’s mood altogether, as she acknowledges, “I got drafted to play professional volleyball in Nebraska, which is amazing. And I’m so excited,” highlighting that this is literally a dream come true for her as a volleyball athlete.

But the infamous January weather of Nebraska could be the biggest hurdle for Ally to keep her form intact. In the coldest months, Omaha can experience temperatures dip below zero, making it a challenge for the athletes to keep performing at their optimum.

This year in January, some parts of north-central and northeastern Nebraska spent 100 consecutive hours below 0°F. Every location in the state had at least one day with subzero maximum temperatures and many locations had multiple days of subzero maximum temperatures, according to the University of Nebraska’s Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Thankfully, the incredible popularity of women’s volleyball has also prompted massive infrastructural changes to the arenas in recent years, making the insides much more bearable than the numbing environments on the outside. However, Batenhorst will have more than simple heating arrangements to keep her company once she returns to her familiar pastures.

Old faces to help Batenhorst overcome the January chill

At the PVF circuit, Batenhorst will find herself a comrade-in-arms in Lindsay Krause, the hard-hitting senior OH, who has been instrumental in the Huskers’ 2024 campaign. A Big Ten Player of the Week honoree, Krause was the 19th draft pick for the Omaha pro team. She and Ally shared locker rooms when the latter used to play for the Lincoln squad.

In the three years spent together at Nebraska, Ally and Lindsay helped John Cook’s team fill their trophy cabinet with vigor, making Batenhorst’s departure understandably hard for her teammates. Thankfully, they can now once again join hands to help the Supernovas defend their title next year.

With her move to the Omaha camp, Batenhorst will be able to get back closer to her family, who are mostly based in Nebraska. “I’m so excited. My entire family is from there…I have so many memories. I’m gonna be around so many old teammates, and friends,” she noted her glee in a YouTube video uploaded by the Supernovas right after Ally’s new squad was revealed for the second season of Real Pro Volleyball. She went on to say, “It’s definitely home. I’m super pumped.”

Batenhorst ended the 2024 regular season with an astonishing 481 kills and earned a total of 563.5 points for the Trojans, helping USC finish things off with a 22-10 overall record. With her form evident, do you think she and Krause will be able to help Omaha keep the PVF trophy at home next time as well? Tell us your predictions in a comment!