SPORTS
UW sweeps away poor showings
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Also by Greg Schmitz:
- Blown away: Cyclones shock Badgers (December 3, 2007)
- Super Seniors (November 29, 2007)
- Badgers draw comparisons to 2000 finalist squad (November 27, 2007)
Related Stories:
- Badgers look to end road woes with Carlini back (October 20, 2006)
- Badgers host to Hoosiers, Boilermakers at Field House (October 15, 2004)
- Big Ten race heating up for UW (November 7, 2006)
- Volleyball spikes Big Ten opener (September 25, 2006)
- Volleyball coming home (September 29, 2006)
by Greg Schmitz
Thursday, November 8, 2007
The No. 11 Wisconsin volleyball team (21-3, 13-2 Big Ten)
was looking to bounce back after a not-so-stellar weekend. And bounce back in a
big way they did, sweeping Illinois (15-10, 7-8) 30-14, 30-23, 30-28 Wednesday
night at the Field House.
"I'm happy with that win," head coach Pete Waite said. "I
feel like we got back on track (and) we were playing better ball."
The Badgers dominated the Illini from the first serve in
Game 1, cruising to a 30-14 win. Led by sophomore outside hitter Brittany
Dolgner — who began and ended the game with a kill and totaled five for the
game — Wisconsin was almost flawless, hitting at an incredible .652 clip with
only one error.
"We definitely had a little extra motivation going into
tonight's match," senior setter Jackie Simpson said. "[We were] really focused
on playing our volleyball and just really relaxing out there and playing
together and having fun."
After Saturday night's match against Northwestern, Waite
said his team needed to get back to serving tough, something he believed it got
away from last weekend. The Badgers responded with four service aces in the
first game alone — eight for the match— in holding the Illini to .030 hitting
percentage.
"We did a lot of serving drills (in practice)," junior
Morgan Salow said. "We even did a drill serving our toughest, and we had to get
10 points in a certain number of minutes with our passers passing. … I think it
was a lot better tonight."
After allowing Illinois to jump out to a 4-1 lead to start
Game 2, Wisconsin, behind the serving of senior libero Jocelyn Wack, went on a
7-0 run to reclaim the lead. The Badgers would never relinquish the lead, and
the Illini would not come within more than three points the rest of the game.
Coming out of the locker room for the third game, Wisconsin
cooled off a little bit and continued to trade points with Illinois for most of
the game. Behind strong play from Vicki Brown and Laura DeBruler, who each had
six kills in the third game, the Illini were able to grab a lead at 25-24 and
got within two points of claiming Game 3 at 28-26. However, the Badgers
finished the game and the match thanks to a 4-0 scoring run. UW hit .243 for
the game while the Illini improved to .250.
"I don't like to be in that position in the third," Waite
said of trailing late in a game. "We talk about character. We talk about coming
back and staying strong and not folding. That's still important, but we just
weren't able to break lose of [Illinois] in that game."
For the match, Wisconsin outplayed Illinois in every
statistical category. The Badgers outhit the Illini .362 to .157 and were led
by senior middle blocker Taylor Reineke with 13 kills and four blocks.
Sophomore Caity DuPont chipped in with 11 kills and two blocks as the Wisconsin
also out-blocked Illinois 11-5.
After getting stuffed early on in Game 1, DuPont finished
the match without another attack error and a career-best .556 hitting
percentage.
"Confidence is a big thing," DuPont said. "If something goes
wrong at the beginning of the game, you just need to wash it off, because if
you focus on that, you're not going to play very well the rest of the match. I
just forgot about and just played my game."
Salow also got in on the fun in only her fourth start of the
year. She finished the match with five kills and zero errors for a .294 hitting
percentage. She also added two service aces and three blocks.
"I've been trying to work really hard in practice and just
do my thing," Salow said. "Even if I don't start and [Waite] puts me in, I know
I have a job to do."
Because of strong serving and good defense, Wisconsin was
able to hold Illinois top two hitters in check for most of the match. DeBruler,
who is first in the Big Ten averaging 5.00 kills per game, finished the match
with 13 kills and a .171 hitting percentage. Brown was the only other Illini in
double figures with 12 kills
"We took two very good hitters, who had been doing very well all season, in DeBruler and Brown and really kept their hitting percentages down and their kill totals down," Waite said. "I think that was the big difference in the match."
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