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After losing to No. 1 Penn State Nov. 16 — which secured a
fifth-straight Big Ten title for the Nittany Lions — the No. 9 Wisconsin
volleyball team (25-4, 17-3 Big Ten) wanted to finish strong over the final
three games before the NCAA tournament started.

"It's important to have momentum going into the tournament,"
senior co-captain Jocelyn Wack said. "That is something we strive for every
year."

With a pair of sweeps over Iowa (9-21, 1-18) and Minnesota
(18-12, 11-9) this past weekend, the Badgers accomplished their goal and will
now enter the tournament on a three-match winning streak.

"We definitely stepped our game up and are playing a lot
stronger overall as a group," senior setter Jackie Simpson said. "That is
definitely something we wanted to do. We kind of hit that midseason brick wall
against Michigan State. I think we really stepped it up a notch and going into
the tournament it is where we want to be at."

In the seniors' final home match, Taylor Reineke refused to
let her team lose, as she took over the match early in game one and led her
team to a sweep of rival Minnesota 30-19, 30-17, 30-16. For the night, Reineke
led all players with 14 kills and a .667 hitting percentage. She also chipped
in with three blocks.

"This is the last Big Ten match and I'm a senior so this is
all I have left," Reineke said. "I just wanted to end on a good note and help
the team going into the NCAA. … The team played really well today. All the
passes were on the target and the sets were on the money."

After the match, even the Minnesota players were impressed
with Reineke's performance.

"I actually played club with [Reineke]," Minnesota middle
blocker Jesse Jones said. "On her senior night I'm happy that she got a win. It
is the best I've every seen her play, especially offensively."

Besides the strong play from Reineke, Wisconsin used tough
serving to help separate itself from Minnesota throughout the match. The
Badgers had runs of 11-0 in the first game and 6-0 in the second and third
games.

"That was our goal," head coach Pete Waite said about the
Badgers' serving game. "We've been working on it all year, and I think the team
really realized it's time to get it done now. We had pressure on them the whole
time, which kept them out of their offense, kept them out of rhythm, and kept
them on their heels. It gave us momentum throughout the entire match."

Wisconsin finished the match with six service aces and kept
the Golden Gophers to a .000 hitting percentage. Jones and Kyla Roehrig, two of
Minnesota's top hitters, combined for only five kills against 12 errors for a
-.233 hitting percentage.

"I thought Wisconsin served the ball about as well as you
can serve it," Minnesota head coach Mike Hebert said. "When you start serving
that aggressively you can keep a team off balance, and they kept us off balance
all night."

Wisconsin opened up their final home weekend of the regular
season by dispatching last-place Iowa 30-20, 30-22, 30-23 in front of 5,046
fans. Before the match, Wisconsin honored five seniors — Reineke, Wack,
Simpson, Megan Mills, and Amanda Berkley — for their contributions to the team
over the last four years.

"I thought we did a nice job tonight," Waite said. "When we
were down at Iowa, we went four games with them and it was one of our goals to
try and get it down in three tonight."

Iowa senior Stacy Vitali opened the match with a kill to
give the Hawkeyes an early lead. However, after both teams traded a couple points,
sophomore Caity DuPont put down her first kill of the night to give Wisconsin a
3-2 edge that the Badgers would not give up the rest of the game.

"[Iowa] had some different people in the lineup," Waite
said. "Vitali on the left side was kind of a surprise to us, but I thought the
team adjusted well to that."

Wisconsin then used the momentum gained in the first game to
cruise to another sweep and send Iowa to its 15th-straight Big Ten loss.

For the night, Wisconsin led Iowa in every statistical
category, including kills, where the Badgers had a 51-36 lead. DuPont led all
players with a career-high 16 kills.

"Early
in the season [DuPont] and Al Wack were really going back and forth with court
time and Caity really stepped it up," Waite said. "Each week she has been on
the court, she has gotten more confident and stronger out there so she has
really earned it."

Sophomore
Brittany Dolgner was the only other player in double digits with 10 kills.
Katherine Dykstra and Taylor Reineke chipped in with nine and eight kills
respectively.