The Big Ten Co-Setter of the Year and the all-time Illinois blocks leader played their final games at Huff Hall on Saturday. A junior had a big hand in ensuring it wouldn't be the final game in their Illini careers.

Senior Jordyn Poulter had 51 assists, senior middle blocker Ali Bastianelli had 11 kills and four blocks, and junior outside hitter Jacqueline Quade had 25 kills and seven digs to send Illinois to its first final four since 2011.

No. 3 Illinois was pushed to four sets by No. 6 Wisconsin, but the Illini pulled away at the end for a 25-19, 15-25, 25-22, 25-23 win at a sold-out Huff Hall.

Illinois will take a 17-game winning streak to Minneapolis, where the Illini will play defending national champion and Big Ten rival Nebraska in the national semifinals on Thursday.

Quade set the tone early for Illinois with eight kills in the first set, when the Illini hit .515.

Dana Rettke led the Badgers (25-7) with 21 kills.

The Big Ten rivals had split their two matches during the regular season.

Illinois, which will be making its fourth trip to the national semifinals, finished runner-up to UCLA in 2011.

No. 1 Stanford vs. No. 4 BYU, 7 ET, ESPN

No. 3 Illinois vs. No. 7 Nebraska, 9 ET, ESPN

MINNEAPOLIS -- Next week's volleyball final four at the Target Center will proceed without the hometown team.

No. 15 seed Oregon won a marathon second set it appeared to have lost Friday, then went on to oust No. 2 seed Minnesota on the Gophers' home court 21-25, 41-39, 25-14, 26-24 in the Minneapolis Regional semifinals. The Ducks (23-10), who also dealt the 27-4 Gophers their first loss back in September, meet defending national champion Nebraska (27-6) in Saturday's regional final at Maturi Pavilion.

The Ducks quieted a near sellout crowd of 5,187 that expected the Gophers, who came in 16-0 at home this season, to advance. On the bus heading to the arena Friday morning, Oregon coach Matt Ulmer told his players to "make great memories." They certainly did, reaching a regional final for the second time in program history and the first since an NCAA finals run in 2012.

"An unforgettable one, honestly," said senior setter/hitter August Raskie, who contributed 10 kills, 60 assists and 11 digs to the Oregon attack.

It didn't start out that way. Minnesota hit .465 in winning the first set, with Alexis Hart contributing six of Minnesota's 22 kills.

"I thought we served great," Ulmer said. "Then I looked at the stats -- they hit .465, and I was like, 'This is going to be fun.' They're so physical. But they came down a little bit."

An exhausting second set featured 26 ties, 11 lead changes and 17 set points before Oregon prevailed, though not without controversy. Minnesota led 38-37 when Minnesota senior setter Samantha Seliger-Swenson appeared to dig a Lauren Page attack right as it hit the court, leading to a Hart kill. The celebrating Gophers walked off as Ulmer challenged the call. It was overturned after a lengthy review. From 39-39, Oregon won the set on consecutive kills by Brooke Van Sickle.

"Sam was pretty confident she pancaked that ball, and we got it," Gophers coach Hugh McCutcheon said. "We thought we won it. A little bit of a bait and switch there. But that's the way it works out, and we got our hearts broken a little bit. It took us a while to recover."

Page opened the third set with one solo block and two block assists as Oregon raced to 5-0 and 10-2 leads in winning handily. Minnesota recovered at the start of the fourth, scoring the first four points, two on Regan Pittman kills. After some back and forth, Minnesota forged ahead 22-19. But Oregon drew even at 23-23 and took the lead on a Pittman attack that sailed long.

A kill by Minnesota's Adanna Rollins evened the set. But then Rollins served long, and a kill by Ronika Stone -- her team-leading 20th of the match -- set off a Ducks celebration. In the final two sets Minnesota struggled to put balls away, hitting .111 and .109, respectively, while making 14 attack errors.

"This group worked incredibly hard and deserved a chance to compete at the end of this thing," McCutcheon said. "But that's not going to be our lot in life, so we've got to deal with what is and move on. It's disappointing. I know it's not the end all of us wanted, but when you compete for a living, sometimes it doesn't work out the way you want."

-- Pat Borzi

Nebraska 3, Kentucky 0

Nicklin Hames and Nebraska set up a return trip to the regional finals, where they'll play Oregon. Courtesy Nebraska

Nebraska coach John Cook calls his team the most improved in the country, an intriguing notion about a defending national champion. But as Cook weaved seven new players into the lineup, four freshmen among them, it took time to develop the toughness and resiliency demanded in a Big Ten Conference that sent seven teams to the NCAA tournament and six into the final 16.

The Huskers exhibited some of those qualities Friday in the third set while finishing off an NCAA Regional semifinal sweep of SEC champion Kentucky. After breezing 25-17 in the first set and holding off the Wildcats 25-20 in the second, the Huskers trailed 17-10 and 23-20 in the third before rallying to win 25-23.

Nebraska (27-6) will face Oregon in Saturday's regional final, with a berth to the final four on the line. The Wildcats (26-5) had won 23 straight, one short of the school record.

"The area we've improved the most probably is playing together as a team, understanding their roles, who's got to do what, working out those kinks," Cook said. "Over half our team is new, and it's taken a while to develop all that. I just think their development and their growth and their maturity, learning how to play as a team, has been our biggest improvement."

Nebraska, the nation's top defensive team, limited Kentucky to .119 hitting the first two sets and .165 for the match -- the 26th time this season an opponent hit below .200.

"If you hold a team under .240 hitting percentage, you're going to have a great chance, [especially] knowing the type of offense we have and the ability to put the ball away," said Kentucky coach Craig Skinner, a former assistant to Cook at Nebraska and Wisconsin. Nine Wildcats service errors, four in the first set, didn't help.

Kentucky began the third set more in system, grabbing that seven-point lead. Skinner called timeout when Nebraska rallied to 22-20, triggering a "Go, Big Red!" chant from Huskers fans at the University of Minnesota's Maturi Pavilion.

"They played really hard in Game 3, and we didn't necessarily show the resiliency that we should have in the beginning," said senior outside hitter Mikaela Foecke, who led Nebraska with 14 kills. "They took advantage of that. About halfway through the set, we really started to fight and show that we wanted to win."

A cross-court kill by Brooke Morgan put Kentucky two points from victory. But Nebraska answered with the final five points of the match, a run that began with back-to-back kills by sophomore outside hitter Jazz Sweet. Kentucky's Leah Edmond appeared to stop the run with a kill for an apparent 24-23 Wildcats lead, but she touched the net on her follow-through. Cook challenged the point and won a reversal.

"Everybody's yelling at me, and I'm trying to ask Jazz if it was Leah Edmond [on the] net, and she said, 'I didn't net. I didn't net!'" Cook said with a chuckle. "The communication wasn't very good. But [assistant coach] Jaylen [Reyes] was all over it. That's why I hire these young guys, because they can see all that better than I can."

What's next? Minneapolis Regional final: No. 7 Nebraska vs. No. 15 Oregon, Saturday, 6 p.m. ET, ESPNU/WatchESPN

-- Pat Borzi

Palo Alto Regional: Stanford 3, Washington State 1