After breezing through the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament, it is now gut-check time for the No. 12 UW volleyball team (25-6). Although they did not lose a game against California and Loyola last weekend, the competition is now more fierce and the crowds are no longer friendly. The Sweet 16 brings on No. 9 Notre Dame, a team that has lost only three matches all season.
'It's a team we're familiar with, we played them last year [in the tournament],' head coach Pete Waite said. 'They have a lot of the same players back and I think they've solidified their defense even more but we feel good about the way we're playing and that's how we should this time of year.'
The match Waite referred to was one for the books, a second round matchup in Madison last postseason. Many of the players on this season's rosters for both teams competed, but it was Wisconsin who ultimately came out on top, sweeping the Fighting Irish 36-34, 30-16, 30-16.
'We were actually down 23-29 and came back to beat them 36-34. That's a huge comeback in rally scoring, to be at game point and to come back that far,' Waite said in a press conference Monday. 'That gave our team a lot of confidence, the feeling that they could come back against anybody if they needed to.'
On paper, Wisconsin and Notre Dame look very similar in many categories, including blocks, kills, hitting percentage, and assists. The Irish's two main attackers are Lauren Brewster and Lauren Kelbly, who have 3.87 and 3.53 kills per game respectively. On the defensive end, Brewster leads the team in blocks with 1.6 per game and Meg Henican is one of the better liberos in the country with five digs a game.
For the Badgers, tournament time seems to be bringing the best out of their players. Sophomore setter Jackie Simpson is playing as well as she has all season, crisply setting up the offense with 75 assists and 10 kills last weekend. Sophomore Taylor Reineke and senior Sheila Shaw both had nine block matches while senior Aubrey Meierotto, junior Maria Carlini, and freshman Audra Jeffers had many of the kills. In addition, sophomore Jocelyn Wack inched ever closer to an NCAA record, as she added to her consecutive double figure dig match streak. She is now at 62 straight, which is only one off the record.
If UW gets past Notre Dame on Friday, they will meet the winner of the Purdue-Washington match. The Badgers split the season series with Purdue (25-8) on the season, while they did not play No. 3 Washington (28-1). The Wisconsin match commences at 5:00 in College Station, Texas on Friday, while the winners will meet at 5:00 on Saturday to see who will advance to the Final Four.
