In its last tournament before the start of Big Ten play next weekend, the No. 11 Wisconsin volleyball team (8-2) finished their regular season non-conference games with a third consecutive tournament win Friday and Saturday at the San Diego Invitational. The Badgers dropped their first match to UC-Santa Barbara 24-30, 30-22, 30-24, 24-30, 11-15 before turning their momentum around by defeating Brown University 30-12, 30-26, 30-19 and knocking off San Diego 21-30, 30-21, 30-23, 30-26 in the championship game to take home the tournament crown.
Wisconsin suffered its first upset from an unranked opponent this season early Friday afternoon against UC-Santa Barbara (5-5), a perennial NCAA tournament contender. Despite putting up better numbers in nearly every category for the match, the Gauchos still managed to leave the court with a victory thanks in large part to the play of senior outside hitter Jamie Garbisch, who had a match-high 31 kills on 83 attempts.
Several UW players recorded milestones during the match, including freshman outside hitter Brittney Dolgner's career-high 18 kills and junior setter Jackie Simpson's season-high 69 assists, but the better statistics weren't enough to earn a win for the Badgers.
""It's a disappointing loss,"" Wisconsin head coach Pete Waite said. ""After losing the first [game], I thought we really grabbed the momentum, winning the next two games. We felt good about our play but came out slow in the fourth and really had a hard time stopping Garbisch. It was a career day for her.""
The Badgers turned things around Saturday with a victory over Brown University (1-6) in their second match of the tournament. Wisconsin started out the first game without a single hitting error and finished the three-game match with a season-high .495 team hitting percentage.
The offensive assault was led by senior middle blocker Amy Bladow, who finished with a career-high .800 hitting percentage and 12 kills, while senior outside hitter Maria Carlini hit .714 for the afternoon. Neither player had any hitting errors in the entire match. Junior middle blocker Maya Carroll and freshman outside hitter Caity Dupont came off the bench to contribute five kills in the last game against the Bears.
""I was pleased with the way we played in the first and third games. I thought we let up a little bit in the second,"" Waite said. ""We're always trying to be more consistent game in and game out but it was a good match for us.""
The championship match against tournament host San Diego (10-4) started out on a bad note for the Badgers, as they were down by at least six points for the entire first game and could only come up with one block. But Wisconsin bounced back in the last three games, digging up 71 attacks to the Toreros' 67, earning 64 kills to their 54, and out-blocking them 16.5 to six.
Junior defensive specialists Amanda Berkley and Megan mills came up with 10 and 11 digs respectively, while Simpson and junior middle blocker Taylor Reineke earned all-tournament honors after their Saturday night performance.
""After a really slow start in the match, it was a great turnaround by our team,"" Waite said, just after earning the 450th win of his college coaching career with the victory over San Diego. ""I thought a couple of our defensive players really stepped it up —Mills and Berkley—and really gave us a lift. In the fourth game, we withstood a great rally by San Diego and grabbed the momentum back and really finished strong.""
The Badgers will now look ahead to the first two games of Big Ten conference play against Illinois Friday and Northwestern Saturday, both of which will be played on the road.
""This was a good road trip for us going into the Big Ten season and going on the road. Even though we took one loss, we learned a lot and came out stronger,"" Waite said.
—uwbadgers.com contributed to this report.
