In what was arguably its most impressive display during conference play this season, the Wisconsin volleyball team (6-2 Big Ten, 14-4 overall) came up with big wins against No. 9 Purdue (5-3, 15-4) and Indiana (1-7, 10-10) this weekend at the UW Field House. The Badgers' turnaround came after a tough road trip last week, in which they dropped games against Penn State and Ohio State and lost senior outside hitter Maria Carlini to a foot injury.
The Badgers entered Friday's matchup against Purdue as the apparent underdogs, but quickly proved otherwise in their 30-12, 30-20, 31-29 rout of the Boilermakers.
Wisconsin came out swinging, never allowing Purdue to even tie the score at any point in the first game. Game three went down to the wire, but two kills by sophomore outside hitter Audra Jeffers, an error on the Boilermaker offense and a service ace by freshman outside hitter Brittney Dolgner gave the Badgers the last four points of the game and a match victory.
""It was huge,"" UW head coach Pete Waite said of the three game sweep. ""Purdue also has been going a lot of five game matches and they've been winning them.
""I'm sure [Purdue's coach] was down in the locker room telling them just that, ‘It's going five games, we're going to get this one, hang in there,' Waite continued. ""But we had just the opposite talk in there: ‘we're not going to go five, we're finishing in three.' And for [our team] to hold strong when we were down 29-27 I believe, to come back, tie it up, and win the next two [points] is fantastic.""
Freshman outside hitters Caity DuPont and Dolgner stepped in and put up impressive numbers on the night, as Carlini remained on the bench for the second match in a row. Dolgner finished with a match-high 20 kills and a career-high five blocks while DuPont recorded a career-high nine kills on 17 attempts in only her second match in which she saw significant playing time this year.
To the dismay of Badger fans, junior libero Jocelyn Wack only recorded eight digs on the night and ended her NCAA record of consecutive matches with 10 or more digs at 80.
""That was a fantastic record,"" Waite said ""It's going to be a long time before anybody beats that, but I know that she's happy to finish it in a three game win over the ninth ranked team in the country.""
In the match against Indiana, Wisconsin continued its winning ways and overwhelmed the Hoosiers 30-9, 30-15, 30-27 in its second weekend sweep in front of 7,064 Badger fans. The Badgers tied their all-time record for fewest points allowed in a rally match in Saturday's first game against Indiana, a record set in November 2001 against Iowa. Wisconsin's defense was particularly spectacular, holding the entire Indiana team to a paltry .036 hitting percentage.
""I feel like we really picked up where we left off on Friday night,"" Waite said of the match against Indiana. ""Overall, a great team effort and a good win, a good weekend.""
Wisconsin takes a trip to Minneapolis Wednesday to battle its border rival, the Golden Gophers.
