Playing in Madison for the first time in five weeks, the No. 9 Wisconsin volleyball team (6-0 Big Ten, 14-0 overall) marked its homecoming with a pair of impressive sweeps against Purdue (2-3, 9-7) and Indiana (3-3, 12-6) last weekend in the UW Field House. Massive crowds, including a season-high 7,074 attendees during Saturday’s match against the Hoosiers, fueled the weekend romp that keeps Wisconsin at the top of the conference standings with a perfect record in the Big Ten.
“It’s amazing to be back home,” senior setter Jackie Simpson said. “We have missed it so much. It was really funny [Friday] because we were all here getting ready for the game and we felt it was weird because normally we’re getting ready for a game at a hotel, so it was so nice to be home and just get ready to go and be out there with the fans. It was amazing.”
Friday night’s 30-25, 30-23, 30-19 win against the Boilermakers was accomplished thanks in large part to a dominating Badger defense. Wisconsin had 11 team blocks on the night, including seven solo blocks, three of which were stuffed by junior middle blocker Audra Jeffers. Senior middle blocker Taylor Reineke, the second best blocker in the Big Ten coming into the weekend, had a solo of her own and four block assists. In addition, the Badgers outdug Purdue 42 to 35 led by sophomore outside hitter Brittney Dolgner who led all players with 11 digs. Dolgner also had the most kills on the night with 20.
“I was really pleased with that match,” UW head coach Pete Waite said Friday. “The way our team came out and the fact that they were strong through three games. That’s one point of emphasis we had going into it and in between games two and three was to finish and not let them get that third game like we had last weekend in both matches [against Northwestern and Michigan State].”
The match against Indiana was more of an up-and-down fight, but the Badgers ultimately came out with the 30-17, 33-31, 30-16 victory. Wisconsin hit .414 and tallied four blocks as a team in game one and managed to hold the Hoosiers to a .049 hitting percentage. Indiana’s standout junior outside hitter Erica Short hit only .091 for the game, throwing down three kills with two errors on only nine attempts.
Game two looked like an entirely different match. The Hoosiers either kept pace or led for the majority of the second round until the Badgers closed the gap and tied up the score at 27. Despite a few kills by Short to try to save the match, a miscue on the Indiana defense led to a rare kill by senior defensive specialist Megan Mills to tie the game again at 31 and gave the Badgers the momentum they needed to finish out the match on a pair of Hoosier errors.
That momentum carried through to the third game, where Wisconsin finished the night off strong. Five players finished the night with better than .310 hitting, including sophomore opposite hitter Katherine Dykstra who led all players with .600 hitting percentage. Dolgner led all players again with nine digs and 16 kills. At the very end of the night, Badger fans saw a rare peek of freshman setter Nikki Klingsporn, who had three assists to round out the night for Wisconsin.
“We had a solid first game and we were playing really well,” Waite said. “But they picked it up and they not only hung with us, they had the lead there for awhile and we had to fight back. I think in the second game we really weren’t in a good rhythm … again, give our team credit for coming back and finishing that second game off with a win instead of going into the locker room 1-1. Third game obviously was very strong and [we] felt much better about that.”
The Badgers will go back on the road this coming weekend, where they will face last week’s No. 11 team Minnesota (5-1, 15-3) Friday and a struggling Iowa (1-5, 9-8) squad Saturday.
