Next stop, Texas.
With a pair of solid three-game sweeps against Notre Dame and Iowa State this weekend in the opening rounds of the 2006 NCAA tournament, the Wisconsin volleyball team (26-6) has earned the opportunity to move on to the Sweet Sixteen next weekend in the Austin, Texas, regional bracket. The two victories this weekend were the final two matches played at the UW Field House for the 2006 season, marking the end of an impressive 15-2 home record greatly influenced by the support of Badger fans.
""Our crowd is great here, and it really does give our team extra energy and focus,"" UW head coach Pete Waite said after the second round on Saturday. ""They just want to do a great job for the fans, and if anything starts sliding against us on our side of the net, the fans are [there] giving us some energy right away ... It also gives us confidence going on the road now because I think we're back playing some good ball, good solid ball.""
Friday night's match against Notre Dame exhibited great performances on both sides of the net, but in the end it was the Badgers who walked away with a 36-34, 30-26, 30-21 win. The Fighting Irish came out strong in game one, and tied the score at every point from 26 to 34 until they gave up a service error and an attack error to finally give Wisconsin the first game.
Game two also proved to be a tight race with 19 ties and eight lead changes. Three kills by freshman outside hitter Brittney Dolgner and one by sophomore outside hitter Audra Jeffers sealed the win. The last game proved to be a little more one-sided, as the Badgers finished the match on a 5-1 run spearheaded by four kills from Jeffers.
Statistically, Wisconsin performed well on both sides of the ball. Four players finished with double-digit kill totals while three players came up with at least 10 digs. Junior middle blocker Taylor Reineke threw down 11 kills and had two solo blocks and five block assists. But it was Dolgner who stole the show for the night, as the freshman had 21 kills to earn a .545 hitting percentage and came up with 11 digs.
""Obviously she's very, very good,"" Notre Dame head coach Debbie Brown said of Dolgner after the match. ""I was pleased that we slowed her down after hitting .900 in the first game. We got her .400 points below that for the match, so we made some progress there, but obviously she played very well.""
""We knew Notre Dame was a good team, a very different team, and that's part of the difficulty of scouting them is they had so many new people on the court,"" Waite said. ""I'm glad to see we ended up outdigging them and I think our block kept getting stronger as the match went on and that made a difference also. [We had] a great hitting percentage for us. We probably weren't hitting on all cylinders but still, a good win.""
With the victory, Wisconsin moved on to face Iowa State Saturday night and ended a bittersweet homecoming for Cyclones' head coach Christy Johnson with a 30-20, 30-25, 30-27 victory. This was the first time Johnson, a former UW assistant coach under Waite, had faced her old team since taking over the reins at Iowa State last season.
Throughout the match, the Cyclones managed to control the attack of Dolgner and senior outside hitter Maria Carlini, holding them to .133 and .029 hitting percentages respectively. But where the outsides could not contribute, the middle and right stepped up on Wisconsin's side of the net. Jeffers threw down 14 kills and hit .500 for the night while Reineke added 11 kills of her own. The Badgers also had a great night serving, scoring on seven aces and only hitting four errors in the three-game sweep.
""I thought we lost to a very good team tonight. Wisconsin is deserving of their No. 10 ranking,"" Johnson said. ""They definitely did come after us with their serving. We focused on trying to slow down their outside hitters and I thought we did a pretty good job of that, but unfortunately they have enough other good players that they could redirect their offense to other people and those people hit really well ... Wisconsin was able to make some adjustments and come back at us with some different offensive players.""
""I'm really happy with the way we played,"" Waite said. ""I think Jackie [Simpson] had a really good night dispersing the ball and we had a couple of people step up offensively, especially Taylor and Audra.""
Waite added that it was a peculiar experience for him to coach against a former assistant for whom he has a great deal of respect.
""It was strange,"" Waite said. ""Just when you go over to shake hands even, it's just really different.""
The Badgers will now travel south to the Austin regional to take on the host school, Texas. The Longhorns finished the season at No. 8 in the American Volleyball Coaches Association poll and earned the No. 7 seed in the NCAA tournament. Several UW team members have been looking forward to a rematch against Texas, who spoiled UW's home opener in the first game of the season with a three-game sweep.
""I definitely think that there is a lot of extra motivation,"" junior setter Jackie Simpson said. ""The very first time we came out and played them, the first match of the season, [we had] all those jitters, just trying to get used to everyone ... I think we're a lot different team now so I'd like to see the matchup again.""
