The Wisconsin volleyball team capped off another round of spring season matches Saturday in its very own Wisconsin Spring Classic held at the UW Fieldhouse. The Badgers finished the day 6-4 after three matches against Northern Iowa and Marquette and four matches against Iowa State.
Wisconsin came out sluggish in its first set of three games against Northern Iowa, losing the first two 33-35, 29-33 before winning the last game 39-32. All games for the day were played on a 25 minute time restraint. Northern Iowa demonstrated superior blocking and better passing early on compared to the Badgers, who trailed by as many as nine points to the Panthers in the second game.
We started really slow today and just did not have our act together,\ Wisconsin head coach Pete Waite said. ""It was nice to see that every game that came after that we improved.""
Wisconsin turned around to put on a strong display against Marquette in the second round of three games, taking the first two 32-25, 35-27 before losing the last game 28-37. Freshman outside hitter Audra Jeffers made a few particularly spectacular kills in each match that demonstrated why she made the 2005 Big Ten All-Freshman Team last season.
The Badgers finished with a three-game round against Iowa State, followed by one more additional game that the Wisconsin and Iowa State benches agreed to play to finish out the day. The Cyclones, coached by former UW assistant coach Christy Johnson, finished the tournament with the same record as the Badgers, but Wisconsin certainly had the upper hand against their Big 12 opponent, winning three out of four 41-27, 30-38, 32-27, 40-38. UW's success came in large part to a much-improved blocking game that had been virtually non-existent earlier in the day, as well as from the excellent up front play by senior middle blocker Amy Bladow.
""We ... saw some improvement in Katie [Lorenzen] as a setter, Audra [Jeffers] hitting out of the back row [and Amy] Bladow on the right side did a nice job,"" Waite said. ""Just everybody I think stepped it up and we started playing better as a team and started flowing together much better than we did last week in Hawaii.""
Besides seeing their team come out of the tournament with a winning record, Badger fans got to see a great deal of playing time from sophomore middle blocker Morgan Salow, sophomore defensive specialist Faye McCormack and junior middle blocker Maya Carroll, all of whom played less than 30 games last season. Last season's red shirt freshman middle blocker Katherine Dykstra also got into the mix during several games, adding some impressive kills and blocks of her own. However, junior setter Jackie Simpson remained absent from the lineup due to injury, sitting on the bench all day without even suiting up.
Wisconsin will continue spring play in two weeks, when they take on in-state opponent UW-Milwaukee April 12. The first serve will be at 7 p.m. at the UW Fieldhouse.
""We're now two weeks into it and a couple of matches into it and we learn every time we step on the court,"" Waite said of his team's progress this spring. ""We still need to be better blockers ... serving was better today. That was nice to see. We'll just continue with what we're doing.""
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