Although the No. 10-ranked Badgers won both of their matches at the Field House this weekend, they dropped a game at home for the first time in Big Ten play this year.

Wisconsin was pushed to five games against Northwestern Friday night and also lost a game in its win over Illinois Saturday night.

"They have to understand that it's just not a given," UW head coach Pete Waite said. "You don't just show up on the court, and it's going to happen like magic every night. There are nights you're going to have to work a lot harder to make it all work right."

The players were also disappointed with their performance, echoing their coach's remarks.

"We didn't play that well tonight. Obviously everyone knows that," junior Taylor Reineke said after the Northwestern victory. "We got the 'W' and that's all that matters. We're just going to throw this one away and move forward and try not to look back on tonight.

"We've been playing really well the past three weekends, and we're still that team, but just tonight was off. Tomorrow night we'll definitely pick it up."

While the Badgers played considerably better against the Illini, they did not play their best. Communication was the biggest problem for the ailing Badgers, especially in game two where a couple of free balls fell to the floor.

"The little things that we weren't communicating on during this match [were] some overpasses, some balls along the night that we normally really control and are very aggressive with and some free balls that there was some miscommunication between some people," Waite said.

Although the Badgers did not play their best as a team this weekend, a few players were able to boast career-high performances.

Friday night, Wisconsin needed a career night from freshman Britney Dolgner in order to beat Northwestern in five games, and she did not disappoint. Dolgner led all players with a career-high 30 kills and was the only Badger to hit over .300.

"I think [Dolgner] made some huge plays all over the court tonight," Waite said. "The strange thing is she bumped her knee a couple of days ago, and we didn't know if she would play tonight. She came through and was phenomenal.

"Whether she was banging off the top of the block, hitting inside the block, roll-shotting it, back row attack, she was in a groove. It was good Jackie (Simpson) got her the ball as many times as she did."

Dolgner's previous career high was 25 kills, which she had reached twice earlier this season at Ohio State and Iowa.

Against Illinois Saturday night, a pair of Badgers was also able to put up career numbers.

After only getting seven kills and hitting just .095 against Northwestern, sophomore Audra Jeffers had 13 kills with zero attack errors for a career best .722 hitting percentage against the Illini.

"I just stayed aggressive the entire night," Jeffers said. "I just really wanted to play well. In practice I've been giving it my all and waiting for this day to come where I just had a solid game. I'm glad that happened tonight."

Jeffers' previous career-high hitting percentage was .545 against Weber State last year.

Senior middle blocker Amy Bladow also had a career high with nine block assists. Her previous best was eight, which she has done three times in her career including once this year against UW-Milwaukee.