The Wisconsin women's volleyball team (2-8 Big Ten, 13-8 overall) split a pair of weekend matches, with a win against Iowa (1-8, 6-12) Friday and a tough loss to No. 20 Minnesota (15-7, 5-5) Sunday.
The match against the Hawkeyes was a balanced over-all team effort for the Badgers. Senior leader, outside hitter Allison Wack had an impressive game, racking in a career-best 25 kills and tied her career best of 17 digs.
""It really came down to Wack who played one of the best matches of her career. She really played with confidence and was strong attacking against the block,"" head coach Pete Waite said.
In Iowa, Wisconsin came out on top of a back-and-forth game to grab the first match 27-25. Wack put away the match for the Badgers, finishing with two kills. Freshman defensive specialist/outside hitter Annemarie Hickey also contributed with her offensive attacks, along with sophomore middle blocker Alexis Mitchell. Hickey had a career-high 18 kills and 13 digs on the match to earn a double-double.
The second and third sets were both close in score, but the Badgers couldn't pull out the wins and lost 25-23 and 27-25, respectively. The Badgers took an early 13-9 lead in the fourth set. With Wack's service aces and junior setter Janelle Gabrielsen's match-winning block, the Badgers won 25-17. Gabrielsen also had her career-high of 63 assists in the match.
It all came down to the fifth set, in which Iowa had the lead of 13-12 early. Wack and Hickey contirbuted two huge kills, putting the set at match point. An Iowa timeout didn't faze the Badgers, as Gabrielsen took the match with a game-winning kill.
On Sunday afternoon, the Badgers put up a strong fight against the Golden Gophers, but had trouble closing out sets as Wisconsin lost in four. Wack again led the Badgers, with another 20 plus kill total for the match, contributing 21. The Badgers stepped it up defensively, with four players having double digit digs. Gabrielsen had a career-high 19 digs on the match.
The Badgers started off slow in the first match and found themselves down quickly 9-4, with the Gophers eventually running away 25-15.
The second set was much closer, with the Badgers taking their first lead of the match at 7-6. Minnesota had some huge kills from freshman outside hitter Ashley Wittman in the set and ended up winning 25-23.
The Badgers weren't going down without a fight, however, and struck back in the third set, jumping to a 5-1 lead. The Badgers never trailed in the third set from that point on, and with some defining kills from Gabrielsen, the Badgers went on to win 25-17.
The fourth set was intense on both sides, with 14 tied scores. Both teams went on late 4-1 runs, finding themselves tied late, 24-24. The Gophers finished off with two kills though, ending the set, and taking the match 26-24.
Coach Waite remained optimistic following the match and elected to look forward to the schedule ahead.
""We've grown a lot as a team,"" Waite said. ""We've lost some close ones, but if you look at the scores in a lot of these sets, they're very close. Hopefully we've gained the experience to get over the hump in those and get the win.""
The Badgers return home this Halloween weekend, playing Michigan State on Friday and Michigan on Saturday.
