After tying a University of Wisconsin school record of 16 straight wins, No. 2 Wisconsin volleyball heads to Columbus to take on No. 20 Ohio State this Friday night.
Wisconsin’s home sweep over Ohio State Sept. 28 started the school record winning streak, which came after a 3-0 home match loss against then-No. 3 Penn State four days before.
After the first match against OSU, Wisconsin head coach Kelly Sheffield commented on what it can be like playing defense against one of the now top 20 teams in the country.
“It’s a really hard team to play well against,” Sheffield said. “They have so many different lineups with 5-1 and a 6-2 offense and people playing a lot of different positions, a lot of subbing that goes on. It’s a really tough team to get in a rhythm.”
During the post-match news conference Wednesday after a 3-1 win, Sheffield discussed how the Illinois match was a response from the Badgers through those times of adversity.
Positive and effective responses to adversity are something the Badgers will have to carry over to Friday night to be successful against the Buckeyes. With players like senior setter Taylor Sherwin and senior outside hitter Erin Sekinger, Wisconsin has their work cut out for them.
Junior outside hitter Katie Mitchell ended up being the star hitter for OSU in their first match against the Badgers with nine kills, but since then, Sekinger has become the dominant hitter for the Buckeyes, averaging 3.22 kills per set with 351 kills so far this season.
Similarly, Ohio State’s setter Taylor Sherwin has been averaging almost 10 assists per set, and has tallied a total of 1,104 assists throughout the course of their difficult schedule.
Teams stacked with talent such as Ohio State have the luxury of being able to substitute many players and run many complex plays, which has the potential to create chaos for their opponents.
Sheffield considered how to prepare and plan out his strategy and plan of attack against the Buckeyes earlier this season.
“Without getting into too many specifics, it’s a little bit different going against this team,” Sheffield said. “You can either load your team and give them a lot of information that they can try to regurgitate, or you can simplify things as much as possible and help them throughout the match, and that was the approach we decided to do.”
The last time Wisconsin played Ohio State, the Badgers served at a collective 95 percent with four total aces. Sophomore setter Lauren Carlini was responsible for two of those. But the key to the Badgers sweep of the Buckeyes was their blocking. With help from a variety of players across the roster, the Badgers totaled seven team blocks while OSU had only four.
This time, however, Wisconsin will be playing on the Buckeyes’ home court, a match that will take place less than 48 hours after the Badgers’ clutch win against Illinois at home.
“We play in about 45 hours from now, a really fast turnaround on the road,” Sheffield said. “We better get over this pretty quick.”
The first serve of the Wisconsin-OSU match-up will take place Friday, Nov. 21 at 6 p.m. central time under the lights of the St. John Arena.
