The Wisconsin volleyball team saw its season come to a disappointing end Saturday night in a 25-30, 30-20, 21-30, 22-30 loss to the Miami Hurricanes in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

“We’re pretty much in shock right now,” head coach Pete Waite said. “I think Miami came out and played great. For some reason we played tight tonight to start the match and never really shook it off, and that’s a hard thing to explain as a coach or as players.”

Miami did not play like a team that is in its second year of existence as the Hurricanes came into the Fieldhouse with confidence and the abilities to back up its reputation. Miami will play No. 3 Nebraska in the next round, a match that the Badgers were counting on playing in.

“I think that was what we all felt and had no doubt that we were moving on to the next round,” senior Erin Byrd said.

From the opening point of the match, in which Byrd served the ball into the net, the Badgers were plagued by hitting errors and dominated at the net. Although the Badgers out-killed and out-dug the Hurricanes for the match, the Hurricanes were able to reverse the trend in each game that they won.

However, the Badgers put up big numbers statistically, led in kills by Jill Odenthal’s 19, Erin Byrd’s 18 and Amy Hultgren’s 13. Along with Byrd, libero Lisa Zukowski led the match with 14 digs and setter Morgan Shields averaged 15.5 assists per game.

“We had three people with big numbers in kills, but we also didn’t stop them at all, and that’s the big thing,” Waite said. “You can have all the numbers you want, but if you don’t stop them either digging the balls or blocking balls they’re going to score their points.”

The youthful Hurricanes were led by the play of their outside hitters, as sophomores Elizabeth Tyson and Valerie Tipiana both put up double figures in kills and digs, while the ‘Canes’ lone senior, Marcela Gamarra, added 16 kills in the victory.

“This was just an incredible match for Miami,” Hurricanes head coach Nicole Latagne Welch said. “I think we came into it with not a lot of people believing that we could even be in the match except for ourselves, and we played so confident so poised and so much as a team … I’m so proud of this group to come in here to a great environment, a huge crowd and play their best — it was just incredible.”

In addition to the team’s poor play, Wisconsin came into the match without the services of senior captain Lori Rittenhouse, who also sat out against Florida A&M with an ankle injury. Starting in her place was freshman Aubrey Meierotto, whose playing was less-than-stellar with six kills and six hitting errors.

Rittenhouse watched her career come to an end from the bench as the Badgers changed their lineup from game to game, looking for the right combination. Freshmen Lauren Ford and seldom-used Beth Haberli both saw extended playing time after the Badgers lost game one, but the lineup changes were not enough to turn the match around for the Badgers.

“[Rittenhouse] was not feeling like she could jump much at all in practices, and we tried her a little bit yesterday, but she just felt really out of sync,” Waite said. “We just felt that we needed to go a different way, and it really was the lineup that we went with last Saturday at the end against Michigan and Michigan State, and we played really well, so we thought it would work.”

Miami dominated the Badgers at the net, recording 26 blocks and forcing Wisconsin into 29 hitting errors. In game one, the Badgers cut a four-point Hurricane lead to two at 24-26 after Jill Odenthal had a huge kill, sending the crowd into a frenzy. The Badgers only scored one more point the rest of the match, losing 25-30.

In game two, the Badgers came out inspired after coach Waite had some issue with the officiating in reference to the lineup card. To the crowd’s delight, they opened up with an 11-point lead. Odenthal ended the game with a powerful kill and was personally unstoppable as she led the team in kills for the second night in a row.

“It’s the whole unit, and if the unit doesn’t work then it’s hard to feel like you’re playing well,” Odenthal said. “Anything I do out there it’s because of my team, because they’re passing well [or] because Morgan (Shields) is setting well, I think anytime I do anything it reflects the rest of the team.

Miami dominated the Badgers throughout the third and fourth games, building big leads early and never giving the Badgers any chance of getting back in the match. The loss marked the first time since 1997 that they’ve lost an NCAA game at home and the first time in three seasons that they did not make it past the second round of the tournament. The Badgers finish the year with a record of 25-8 and are already preparing for next season.

“We said very early in the season that it was a real roller-coaster ride, and I think we were going steady and strong for the last month of the Big Ten season and some where we fell off the track in this last match,” Waite said.

“As a staff and as a team, we have to look to the future and see how we can not let that happen again. We have to make sure we’re getting stronger, and we’re very strong mentally, and we keep our aggression late in the season, and we finish further down the road.