UW Holds On Against Illinois
November 04, 2005 | Volleyball
The 10th-ranked Wisconsin volleyball team earned sole possession of second-place in the Big Ten Conference with a 30-22, 23-30, 30-24, 26-30, 15-10 victory over Illinois Friday night at the UW Field House. In only her second start in the last five matches, senior outside hitter Aubrey Meierotto led Wisconsin (18-4, 10-3 Big Ten) with 19 kills. Meierotto converted .357 of her attack attempts along with a career-high eight blocks.
In addition to Meierotto, three other Badgers had double-figure kills. Audra Jeffers added 16 kills and led all hitters with a .393 hitting percentage. Sheila Shaw and Maria Carlini contributed 12 and ten kills, respectively.
Illinois (13-11, 4-9 Big Ten) had four players with double-figure kills as well to finish with ten more kills than the Badgers (77-67). Rachel VanMeter led the Illini with a match-high 26 kills. Wisconsin had a better hitting percentage as a team, connecting on .220 percent of their attacks compared to .203 for Illinois. The Illini gave the Badgers 13 points on service errors while scoring two aces. Wisconsin had three service errors and no aces.
'I think Illinois is a much improved team since the last time we saw them, there is no doubt about that,' said Waite. 'If you look at VanMeter's stats, not just tonight but all season long, she's got 1,200 attempts on the season and the next closest (on their team) is about 600. She often gets about 25-30 kills a match so we know she's good.'
Aside from the balanced offensive attack, the Badgers looked to Katie Lorenzen and Amy Bladow off the bench to help pull out the five-game victory.
'We had a long list of people who came off the bench tonight and helped us out. There's a long list tonight of people who were a part of this win,' said Waite. '(Amy) Bladow came in and helped us out, getting some touches on some balls and gave us some energy.'
Lorenzen and starter Jackie Simpson split time at the setter position. Lorenzen spelled Simpson in the second game and led the team with 37 assists in the match while Simpson had 15.
'(Lorenzen) just changes the tempo of the game,' said Waite. 'It's not that (Simpson) was doing anything badly, we just weren't in a good rhythm as a team at that time. That's the nice thing about having two good setters this year, we've seen them step in at any given time and contribute.'
Defensively, Wisconsin outblocked the Illini 15-8. Sophomore Taylor Reineke led the team with 10 blocks.
Jocelyn Wack's match high 33 digs was a season high and extended her double-figure digs in 53 straight matches. Wack's streak is the longest active in the nation and now ties her for fourth on the all-time NCAA list.
Wisconsin pulled away late from Illinois to win games one and three but the Badgers were unable to overcome early Illini leads in games two and four.
In the decisive fifth game, a kill from Jeffers broke a 9-9 tie and put the Badgers up 10-9. Two Badger blocks keyed a late 5-1 run to give Wisconsin the win.
The Badgers play 17th-ranked Purdue, which lost at Northwestern 3-2 tonight, on Saturday at 7 p.m. in the UW Field House.
