With one final swing from the hand of Iowa State junior middle blocker Jen Malcom, the No. 8 Wisconsin volleyball team's season came to an abrupt end on Saturday night at the UW Field House, as the Cyclones pulled an upset sweep over the Badgers by scores of 30-28, 30-25, 30-24 in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
The loss marks the first time Wisconsin has been swept since their regional semifinal loss to Texas in the NCAA tournament last year and the first time the Badgers were swept at home since Texas beat them in the 2006 AVCA Showcase in the first game of the 2006 season.
This is certainly not a position we expected to be in,"" UW head coach Pete Waite said after the loss on Saturday. ""But give Iowa State credit, they played really well. It's very uncharacteristic of us to ... be off our game at an important time like this.""
The Badgers' weekend started off on a promising note Friday night in the first round of the tournament, topping Northern Iowa 30-23, 30-21, 30-24 in dominating fashion.
Led by sophomore outside hitter Brittney Dolgner's 20 kills on 38 attempts with just three errors, Wisconsin performed better than the Panthers in every major statistical category and hit .355 as a team for the night.
Junior middle blocker Audra Jeffers posted a match high .500 hitting percentage and tallied two solo blocks, while senior middle blocker Taylor Reineke hit .375 and added three block assists.
The team also showed off the improved service game it had been building on over the last weeks of the regular season, posting seven service aces on the night, including three from senior libero Jocelyn Wack.
Wack also had 25 digs on the night, good for second best in Wisconsin history for digs in a three-game match. The team record of 26 digs was set by Wack earlier this year at Minnesota.
""I thought that was a good start to the tournament for us,"" Waite said after Friday's match. ""Northern Iowa is a scrappy team and a team that we saw earlier this year, and they've improved a lot since that time. I don't think the first time we met it was as close of a match and they made some great plays, played some great defense and kept battling all the way to the end.""
But the ensuing match against Iowa State on Saturday did not go nearly as well for Wisconsin.
The Badgers started off well in game one, jumping out to a quick 19-11 lead over the Cyclones thanks in large part to five kills from Reineke and three more from Jeffers.
But Iowa State senior opposite hitter Lauren Cummings rallied her team with five kills of her own down the stretch to tie the game at 23 all. The score remained neck-in-neck with a tie at 28, until an attack error by Reineke and a kill by Iowa State freshman outside hitter Victoria Henson sealed the game.
The rest of the match was an uphill battle for Wisconsin that ended up being insurmountable.
Following a tie at nine points in the second set, Henson threw down a kill to put the Cyclones up for good. The Badgers got a good performance from freshman outside hitter Allison Wack during the second game, hitting three of seven with no errors, but as a team UW could only manage a .111 hitting percentage.
Iowa State did not fair very well offensively in the game either, hitting .109 as a team, but their five blocks and four service aces gave them the winning advantage.
Game three saw more of the same from each bench, with Wisconsin hitting .119 and Iowa State amassing five blocks.
But the Cyclones upped the offense to finish the night, hitting .333 as a team, led by senior outside hitter Erin Boeve who hit .625 in the set.
There seemed to be one last ounce of hope when UW narrowed the deficit to 18-25 by scoring three consecutive points on one service ace and kills from sophomore outside hitter Caity DuPont and Dolgner.
However a pair of kills by Cummings, another from Boeve, a Wisconsin attack error, and the clincher from Malcom spelled defeat for the Badgers who had to accept a premature finish to their outstanding season.
""I thought they served tough and we weren't able to stay consistent with our offense so much,"" Waite said.
""They played some very good defense ... it was close on the digs, but I think they made some critical ones and on some big hits we had. This is one match, but this group had a very very good season and I want them to be proud of that and the fans, for what they did and especially on a night like this with a snow storm that they came out and supported us as they did.""
The end of the season draws to close the careers of five Wisconsin seniors who many believed could help the team to get further into the postseason this year and possibly even match the success of the 2000 UW squad that made it to the NCAA championship.
Reineke, defensive specialists Megan Mills and Amanda Berkley, setter Jackie Simpson, and libero Jocelyn Wack will go down in history as one of the finest classes to don the cardinal and white for the UW volleyball program, setting team and league records in several statistical categories and finished with a record of 100-29 over four years.
