Volleyball Downs Ohio State
November 02, 2002 | Volleyball
For the second time this season, the 15th-ranked Wisconsin volleyball team took down the Ohio State Buckeyes. The win moved the Badgers into a tie for second place, with Penn State and Michigan, in the Big Ten Conference. The match Saturday night went to four games with Wisconsin winning, 30-18, 22-30, 30-23, 32-30. The Badgers are now 17-6 overall and 8-4 in the Big Ten. Ohio State drops to 11-10 overall and 5-7 in the league.
'I think we're getting on track now,' said UW head coach Pete Waite. 'The team is just playing with more discipline. We 've got people in the right positions and if someone's not on, we 've got other people coming in doing a nice job. I think we've got a lot of weapons.'
Waite credits much of the team's success to the amazing blocking in the match.
'Right from the start, our blockers really did a nice job setting up on (Stacey Gordon's) line shots and taking it away. She hammers it, but if you're in the right spot, it's going to go down fast. I know our team enjoyed that a lot.'
The team totaled a season-high 21 blocks in the match, compared to OSU's nine. Sheila Shaw stood above the rest knocking back 10, a career-high. Lori Rittenhouse had eight, tying her career-high. Amy Hultgren and Morgan Shields got a hand on seven each, a career-high for Shields.
'With Ohio State you always know Gordon is the big all-star out there, she's a fabulous player,' said Rittenhouse. 'If you can get touches on her, try to make her think about her shots more'it might give you the extra you need to come out on top.'
Also helping out the Badger scoreboard was Erin Byrd, who led the team with 21 kills. Rittenhouse also tallied double-figures with 11. Shields aided the team with 50 set assists. Defensively, Byrd also led the team with 10 digs.
The match was a rollercoaster with a complete role reversal of the scores between the first and second games.
'This was a strange (match). How in the first and second games, one team was great, one team was not playing well at all,' said Waite. 'I don't have any answers for that and I don't know why it happened to either team.'
In Game 1, the Wisconsin block kept the Buckeye's hitting at negative .057 percent, while in Game 2 OSU answered back with .462 percent in hitting to the Badgers' .000 percent.
By Game 3 the Badgers were back on track hitting .344 percent and totaling 5.5 blocks to curb the Buckeye's hitting at .086 percent.
'We let down early in the match, but we built momentum going into the third game,' said Byrd.
Game 4 was tense until the very end with three of the final six plays decided by errors.
'I thought it was great that our team stayed steady in the fourth (game) and came from behind, which was real important for us to do,' said Waite. '(The team) really made some big plays and that's what we 've been looking for all season.'
The match was taped before a national television audience on ESPN2 and will be broadcast on Sunday at 3 p.m.
Wisconsin volleyball continues next weekend at Iowa on Friday, Nov. 8 at 7p.m. and then at Minnesota on Sunday, Nov. 10 at 2 p.m.
