The Badgers had a strong offensive game against the Hawkeyes Wednesday night but were unable to give the home crowd a win in their first conference home game. However, the team did have some bright spots in the game despite the four-set loss.

With senior outside hitter Brittney Dolgner sidelined for most of the game while she recovered from the flu, junior Allison Wack picked up the slack, tallying a match-high 17 kills with a team-high .333 hitting percentage. Freshmen Kirby Toon and Alexis Mitchell also had strong games, contributing 13 and seven kills, respectively.

While many of the freshmen have been contributing to the team this season, none have performed quite like Toon, who now is second on the team to Dolgner with 93 kills.

“She came in off an injury last year — I am totally impressed with her this season,” senior captain Caity DuPont said before playing Iowa. “We just didn’t know how ready she was going to be, and she’s just doing awesome.”

Also making an impact for the Badgers is junior setter Jessa Benson. The Iowa State transfer filled in for starter Janelle Gabrielsen in order to give head coach Pete Waite’s team a different look for the Iowa defense. Despite the loss, Waite was pleased with Benson’s effort.

“We were a little inconsistent into the third, so we made some changes,” Waite said. “We went with Jessa Benson for a little while. She did a nice job coming off the bench and got us going a little bit.”

When the Badgers take on Minnesota tonight, they’ll be facing their first ranked team of the year and will have to face some of the toughest outside hitters in the Big Ten. Juniors Lauren Gibbemeyer and Brook Dieter lead the Gophers in kills and kills per set, respectively.

However, while the Badgers may be facing a tough task in defending the two hitters, they did succeed in containing Iowa’s own hitting duo. The Hawkeyes’ Megan Schipper and Becky Walters had 23 combined kills, but the Wisconsin defense was able to hold Schipper to a mere .147 hitting percentage, a good sign for the Badgers if they hope to challenge Gibbemeyer and Dieter.

“Really, a .147 hitting percentage, that’s pretty low, so I think we did contain her pretty well,” Waite said. “I think she just got stronger as the match went on and got more of her kills later on.”

While the Badgers have claimed to have a tough non-conference schedule, beginning the season with a 5-4 record, the Gophers may have played an even tougher schedule, facing five ranked teams out of the 12 teams they played in their non-conference schedule. Minnesota beat No. 22 Kansas State in its opener and also beat No. 13 Iowa State on Sept. 5.

Making things even more difficult for the Badgers will be the fact that the Gophers have not yet lost on their home court. On the road this season, the Badgers are 4-2, but two of those wins came against lowly opponents UW-Green Bay and Seattle. Nevertheless, Toon and the Badgers hope to move on from their mistakes against Iowa and challenge the Gophers on their home court.

“I think, you know, we’ve been trying to go into every game with a new mentality,” Toon said. “[We’re] trying to forget either our last win or our last loss and play the best we can.”