The Wisconsin women’s volleyball team continues their two week long Big Ten match slate this Wednesday against Illinois.
Head coach Kelly Sheffield and the Badgers are looking to change the way their season has gone so far.
The Badgers are coming off of a particularly hard, five-set loss to Ohio State this weekend and a loss to top-ranked Penn State last Wednesday.
Wisconsin is looking for its first conference win this week. UW is 0-2 in conference play for the first time since 2010.
The team now goes on to face the No. 7 Illinois Wednesday, and Sheffield said he is not counting out the Fighting Illini (11-2, 2-0 Big Ten).
“They’re going to be one of those teams that are in it until the very end,” he said.
Looking back at Ohio State, Sheffield did not place all of the blame on the players, and admits that some of the chaos from the game falls on the coaching staff.
“We’ve got to compete, but there’s also got to be this balance,” he said. “[Ohio State] scored a couple of points and we’re just running all over the place creating mayhem. We were able to calm down a little bit and get back in the fight and it was a really good match from there on out.”
While Sheffield did not claim the Ohio State game was perfect, he did admit that some good things did come out of the game, namely the team’s communication.
Part of Sheffield’s plan for the next few weeks is getting the ball to his middle blockers more frequently.
“Our middles are really starting to play well,” Sheffield said. “We’ve lost three matches, but our middles have been great for those matches.”
Sheffield also addressed the hitting errors and ball control issues the team has had, but believes they are making progress and getting better each week.
Even though the team did lose Sunday, Sheffield believes this is the kind of thing needed for the team’s plan to start coming together.
“That’s kind of my feeling, is that we’re getting closer,” Sheffield said. “And I see that, even though we’ve lost a few.”
The match against the Fighting Illini begins Wednesday night at the UW Field House at 7 p.m. and will be televised on BTN. Wednesday night is also the annual Steve Lowe night, which will feature a pre-match recognition of the former Badgers head coach.
The Badgers will then play Northwestern Sunday at the Field House at 1 p.m., also on BTN.
