In an up-and-down season for the Wisconsin volleyball team, things may have taken a turn for the worse this past weekend.
After being swept Friday night by No. 1 Penn State, the Ohio State Buckeyes followed the Lady Lions with their own sweep of the Badgers Saturday night at the Field House.
With the loss Saturday, Wisconsin has lost three consecutive games for the first time this season, and after performing well against No. 8 Michigan last weekend, the Badgers admittedly underperformed against both Penn State and Ohio State.
“I’m disappointed in the way we performed tonight,” head coach Pete Waite said following the loss to Ohio State. “That was a team we knew was a hot team coming in … and I think our passing wasn’t up to par and so our offense wasn’t able to run quite as well. … I think again, just way too many errors on the attack by us.”
Waite did not exaggerate when mentioning the attack errors by the Badgers. Compared to only six Ohio State errors, Wisconsin tallied an abysmal 27 errors on the night. That, coupled with 16 Ohio State blocks, led to a sweep for the Buckeyes.
In the first set, the errors began to take a noticeable effect right from the start. After falling behind 3-0, the Badgers were able to score six consecutive points before senior Brittney Dolgner had one of the Badgers’ four serving errors. From then on, it was a back-and-forth battle until the Buckeyes were able to pull away, taking the set 25-21.
But while the numbers indicate an Ohio State-dominated match, the play-by-play line testifies to a hard-fought battle between to evenly-matched Big Ten teams. In the first set, there were 10 tie scores and four lead changes, but the Badgers weren’t able to overcome their 10 attack errors in the first set.
“It’s always our goal to get that first set, to come out strong and aggressive,” Waite said. “It just was not clicking on all cylinders and that’s something that, at this point in the season, we want to be doing. So we’re going to have to get back into the gym and find that spark that gets everything back together again.”
The errors noticeably halted momentum for the Badgers, who had been dominated by Penn State the previous night. For Wisconsin, while it was not particularly overmatched by Ohio State, those errors gave too many chances to a Buckeye squad that has won six of its last eight matches.
“I feel like we made errors at critical times, like we would get points and make a serving error or hit a ball into the block or into the net, and you just can’t have that,” Dolgner said. “It’s just really important to be consistent all the time, and that’s just one of the things with volleyball. … If we continue to [be consistent], I think we’ll win a lot more matches.”
The second set, while ending with the same 25-21 score in favor of Ohio State, was a noticeably better one for UW. The Badgers had four fewer errors and had strong play from freshman Kirby Toon and junior Allison Wack, who collectively contributed eight of UW’s 15 kills.
But once again, after scoring four straight points to tie the set at 16 points apiece, an error by Wack and a UW net violation gave the Buckeyes an 18-16 lead, one they wouldn’t relinquish.
Similarly, in the third set, after the Badgers led 10-8, errors by Wack and Dolgner tied the score, and the Buckeyes didn’t trail for the rest of the match, winning the final set and completing the sweep, 25-19.
After such a tough weekend, Waite couldn’t express any positives about the Badgers’ poor play against two strong Big Ten opponents. With six conference matches remaining, however, the head coach isn’t about to give up on the season, and is looking forward to the team’s rematch against Iowa this Wednesday.
“We’ve got another opportunity tomorrow,” Waite said. “We can train, watch tape and get better, and that’s been our goal. We’ve kind of hit a plateau as far as energy level is concerned. … In the Big Ten if you have any sort of a flat day, you’re going to pay for it.”
