The Wisconsin volleyball team spent its spring break in Hawaii, but the excursion was hardly a leisure trip as the Badgers opened their spring season with an exhibition match Wednesday and an exhibition tournament Saturday.
Wisconsin opened up play against Hawaii Wednesday evening, finishing with a loss after five games, 30-19, 30-23, 30-24, 30-32, 11-15 in the Sheriff Center. Hawaii's Jamie Houston led the charge against the Badgers with a match-high 22 kills and had considerable help from setter Kanoe Kamana'o, who put up 58 assists, nine digs and five blocks for the Rainbow Wahine.
The Badgers put up some solid performances of their own, with junior middle blockers Maria Carlini and Amy Bladow, and freshman outside hitter Audra Jeffers all hitting double-figure kills. With starting sophomore setter Jackie Simpson out with an injury, junior Katie Lorenzen stepped in to contribute 56 assists, seven digs, four blocks and a service ace.
We're glad we started off our spring season against such a strong team,\ head coach Pete Waite said of Hawaii. ""It's just too bad we didn't have our normal starting line-up out on the floor, but at the same time we're making some changes with some players in different positions. It's going to take them a little while to learn [their new responsibilities].""
Wisconsin concluded its exhibition activities Saturday with a round-robin scrimmage against Division II teams BYU-Hawaii and Chaminade, as well as an automatic three-game match against the University of Hawaii. The Badgers easily won two games against a scrappy BYU-Hawaii team 30-15, 30-24 and their two games against Chaminade 30-15, 30-19. But the Badgers dropped the first two out of three games against UH 25-20, 26-24 before rounding out the day with a 25-23 victory. Again, Lorenzen took charge of the offense because of Simpson's injury.
""[Lorenzen] got a chance to come in and run the offense,"" Waite said. ""She did a good job and improved every day.""
""Overall, it was a great spring break trip,"" Waite said of the exhibition experience. ""The weather was not good until Thursday, but we did have a couple of days where we got to go outside and enjoy the nice weather after practicing in the gym. It was a great experience for the team.""
—uwbadgers.com contributed to this report.\
