Despite losing the first two conference matches of the season to Minnesota and Iowa, the No. 19 Wisconsin volleyball team (4-2 Big Ten, 14-4 overall) will be faced with an even tougher pair of opponents this weekend. They will face No. 21 Purdue (3-3, 14-4) and No. 17 Illinois (4-2, 13-4) while on the road for the second straight week. With six teams in the Big Ten ranked in the AVCA top-25 poll, the Badgers will need to take both matches if they wish to remain in contention for the conference title.
[Having six ranked teams] is great for the conference, and it's great for the fans, because it means there's going to be some great competition,"" UW head coach Pete Waite said. ""But obviously it means you have to be really well prepared every time you step on the court, whether you're home or away, because there's a lot of strong ,physical teams out there.""
Friday night's match against Purdue will prove to be a challenge in the defensive department for Wisconsin, which must shut down senior middle hitter Stephanie Lynch to pull out the win. Lynch has been stellar from the front court, hitting an average of .420 and racking up 233 kills, which is fifth best among all Big Ten players. She also averages 1.27 blocks per set on a team that has tallied 44 more blocks than its opponents this year.
Lynch and the Boilermakers will need to pull out all the stops to take a win from the Badgers, who have won three of the last four meetings between the clubs.
The competition will likely tighten up even more when Wisconsin heads into Champaign. Off to one of their best starts in years, the Illini defeated both Michigan and Ohio State on the road for the first time since 1998 last weekend and look to earn their first victory against the Badgers since 2004.
Sophomore outside hitter Laura DeBruler
has been shredding opposing defenses with 282 kills thus far in the season, good for second best in the conference. She complements a team built around the block, as Illinois has been averaging 2.8 blocks per set, led by sophomore middle blocker Johannah Bangert, who has been putting up 1.58 blocks per set on her own.
""[DeBruler] is a great player,"" senior middle blocker Audra Jeffers said. ""We've been scouting her, and we're going to probably get two blockers up on her as much as possible. But no matter who's attacking, we really have just been working on our defense, and that's an area our team wants to improve on.""
Fortunately, the Badgers have improved defensively in recent weeks and should answer to the challenges that Lynch and DeBruler present. Sophomore libero Kim Kuzma earned co-Defensive Big Ten Player of the Week honors last week after tallying 38 digs in seven road sets last weekend and recording her fourth career 20-or-more-dig match against Northwestern. In addition, Wisconsin has an arsenal of front-row hitters to provide an offensive counterattack that has a .257 hitting average. Seven players have 70 or more kills on the offense, led by Brittney Dolgner, who has thrown down 195 thus far in the season. Jeffers is second with 161 and leads the team in blocks with 71, and she knows that her team will need complete matches on both sides of the ball to come out of this weekend with two more conference wins.
""Every night that we play, we know it's going to be a battle,"" Jeffers said. ""It just really stresses our team to be on our toes all the time. You really can't let up at any point in the game - you have to go start to finish really tough [to win in the Big Ten].""
