When it comes to playing in Big Ten matches, there certainly is no place like home for the UW volleyball team. With an electric crowd of 5,487 fans behind them, Wisconsin (9-3 Big Ten, 17-5 overall) became the first team to hand a loss to No. 2 Penn State (11-1, 22-1) this season, sweeping the Nittany Lions 30-22, 30-28, 30-25 and putting an end to their 41-match Big Ten win streak.
""I think we came out tonight, giving everything that we had because we had nothing to lose,"" senior middle blocker Amy Bladow said after Friday's match. ""Everybody favored Penn State, everybody thought they were going to beat us, so we just came out and we left it all on the court and really good things happened ... We couldn't be happier with the outcome.""
From the start, the Badgers seemed to have a great deal of confidence and composure for being the underdogs. The first game started with kills by Bladow and junior middle blocker Taylor Reineke, and was later followed by a stunning eight-point run fueled in large part by a barrage of kills from Reineke and a pair of service aces from freshman outside hitter Brittney Dolgner.
The Nittany Lions seemed to find their footing and managed to maintain the lead for almost the entire second game, but the Badgers kept pace, never allowing Penn State to pull ahead by more than two after tying it up at 8-8. With the game on the line and Penn State ahead 28-26, the Nittany Lions could not finish following a kill by Bladow that sparked three offensive errors, giving the Badgers four points and the win.
Game three saw more of the same neck-and-neck scoring, but this time it was the Nittany Lions that had to play catch up. Again, the Badgers came up with a late rally off Penn State mistakes, as the last two points of the game came off an attack error by outside hitter Nicole Fawcett and a service ace by Reineke.
""I'm just extremely proud of our team for the effort they put in tonight,"" UW head coach Pete Watie said following the match. ""[Penn State is] just so physical, we've talked about that before. But the biggest part of it for our team—and we talked all week about it—was serving tough and passing well, the things we did not do well at Penn State this year. I think our team had that in their minds since then.""
The Badgers out-played the Nittany Lions in every facet of the game, coming up with more blocks, service aces and kills—all categories Penn State led the Big Ten in prior to the match. Wisconsin also managed to keep Penn State's outstanding freshman outside hitter Megan Hodge in check for the night, as she had only 11 kills and a .000 hitting percentage.
""I thought it was a match where we never really got into sync, and I think you attribute that to how well Wisconsin played, and the energy in the building tonight was a factor,"" Penn State head coach Russ Rose said. ""I thought our younger players were affected by the crowd.""
The Badgers finished their weekend with an equally impressive 30-15, 30-23, 30-20 sweep over No. 24 Ohio State (5-7, 15-7) Sunday. Waite was concerned that the win on Friday might spell trouble for his team, but the emotional high from the victory over Penn State only created momentum for the Badgers.
""After such an emotional win on Friday night there was always the question of how we would come out on Sunday, but I think it worked out well that we had a day in between so they could come off that high and rest a little bit,"" Waite said.
Wisconsin hit well once again, amassing a .312 average as a team and came up with nearly double the amount of digs as the Buckeyes, 47 to 26. Despite the fact that each team had 12 blocks apiece, the Badger blocking game proved to be more effective, as Ohio State was held to a .096 hitting percentage as a team. Reineke led the UW assault with 14 kills on 18 hits for a .722 hitting percentage and put up seven blocks.
