Wisconsin Reaches Elite Eight
December 09, 2005 | Volleyball
For the second year in a row, the Wisconsin volleyball team has advanced to the Elite Eight level of the NCAA tournament. The 11th-seeded and 12th-ranked Badgers advanced to the regional final with a 30-25, 28-30, 30-25, 25-30, 15-9 win over sixth-seeded and ninth-ranked Notre Dame. Wisconsin will face the winner third-seeded Washington Saturday at 5 p.m. The Huskies defeated Big Ten Conference foe Purdue 30-25, 30-19, 30-20 in the other semifinal match.
In 2004, Wisconsin upset second-ranked Hawai'i, 3-2, in the regional semifinal before losing to eventual national champion Stanford in the final.
'It was a battle out there tonight,' said head coach Pete Waite. 'Both teams came in with a great effort, they knew they had to have the victory. When we went out, we were feeling good and then they came back. They have some great athletes on that team and I thought they were hitting a lot great balls also."
The Badgers (26-6) used a balanced scoring attack with five players recording double-figure kills. Maria Carlini led all hitters with 22 kills while Audra Jeffers added 16 kills. Taylor Reineke had a career-high 15 kills, Sheila Shaw put down 12 kills and Aubrey Meierotto added 11 kills. Shaw (.385) and Reineke (.364) were the only two players from either team to hit over .300.
'That's been a strength for us all year,' said Waite. 'We don't really have a person that has always been dominating every night where they're getting 25 or 30 kills. I think we 're outhitting team teams because we're harder to shut down. '
Jackie Simpson put up a season-high 67 assists as Wisconsin edged Notre Dame 79-77 in team kills. But the Badgers connected on .264 percent of their attack compared to the Fighting Irish (30-4), who hit just .179. Notre Dame had four players in double digits led by 18 apiece from Mallorie Croal and Lauren Kelbley.
'Overall, I thought Jackie did a good job tonight setting, ' said Waite. 'She had a great match so we had great balance on the attack.'
Wisconsin also used solid defense, outblocking Notre Dame 18.5 ' 12, and outdigging the Irish 106-99. Reineke led all blockers with nine stuffs, while Meierotto had seven blocks, including two solos. Carlini tied her season high with six blocks, including three solos.
In the back court, Jocelyn Wack recorded a career-best and match-high 36 digs. Wack moved into a tie for first on the NCAA record list with double-figure digs in 63 straight matches.
'Jo had a great match and that really kept us in the game," said Waite. "I don't think we played our best, I think we have more inside of us as a team and hopefully we see that tomorrow night.'
Joining Wack in double-digit digs was Megan Mills with a career-high 18, Carlini with 15, Simpson with 12 and Amanda Berkley was 11 digs.
The Fighting Irish were led by Meg Henican with 27 digs as four players recorded double figures.
The only area in which the Badgers were outperformed was at the serving line where they had four aces and six errors. The Fighting Irish had eight aces, including three from Danielle Herndon, and eight errors.
'I'm not surprised," said Wack of being the target of the Notre Dame service attack, "I've kinda been struggling (defending the serve). That's probably why they continued to do that. But Berkley and Mills were great too so it's hard to just go to one person. But I did struggle early so it 's not surprising that they did serve to me a little bit more than usual. '
Wisconsin played near perfect to start game one, jumping out to a 12-4 lead. With the UW up 6-4, the Badgers went on a 6-0 run, led by Carlini. The 6-2 outside hitter had two of her team-high six kills during the shutout stretch. Wisconsin would go up by 10 points (23-13) off a Notre Dame error. The Fighting Irish hit .220 in the game while the Badgers hit .353 with both teams putting down 20 kills. Notre Dame would cut the Wisconsin lead to three (28-25) but a kill from Jeffers followed by an Irish hitting error gave the Badgers the first game.
'We always want to come out strong,' said Carlini. 'Coach (Waite) always tells us to come out aggressive and stay aggressive. We wanted to do this for our captains that are leaving and so we just fought hard. '
Wisconsin struggled with its passing in game two and failed to stop Notre Dame's offense as the Badgers fell behind 16-9. The Fighting Irish took their largest lead of the game at 20-12 before the Badgers started a rally. Wisconsin had four of their 9.5 team blocks in the period to pull within one (24-23) but Notre Dame went back up 28-25 on a service ace by Ashley Tarutis. Meierotto keyed a 3-0 run with a kill and a block with Shaw to tie the game at 28. The Badger rally was cut short as a UW service ace and kill from Croal tied the match at one game apiece.
'What Notre Dame did well was they didn't give us one-on-ones,' said Waite. 'That's what they've been doing all season, that's what they showed on tape. I thought that was part of their plan.'
Game three proved to be almost a replay of game one with the Badgers jumping out to an 11-4 lead. Wisconsin led by eight (13-5) but Notre Dame cut it to one at 16-15 off two consecutive Badger errors. The UW went back up by five (21-16) before the Irish cut it to two (21-19). Two team blocks keyed a 5-2 run by the Badgers to put their lead back up to five (26-21). Carlini had six kills in the game, including the game winner, to lead Wisconsin.
The Badgers came back from a five-point deficit (14-9) in game four to tie the score at 14-14 behind the play of Jeffers. The 6-2 outside hitter had two kills and teamed with Shaw on a block to key the rally. Wisconsin led by four at 21-17 but Notre Dame went on a 6-1 run to take a 23-22 lead. The Badgers would cut the lead to two (27-25) but two Fighting Irish kills followed by a Notre Dame block tied the match.
'I was proud of our kids for the way we came back and got the momentum back on our side of the net in the fifth game,' said Waite.
Wisconsin improved to 5-1 in five-game matches this season by jumping out to a 7-3 lead, keyed by two kills from Carlini. The Badgers went up 10-5 in a block from Shaw and Meierotto. Two straight Irish errors gave the UW a 12-6 lead, a lead the Badgers would not relinquish. Notre Dame held off the first Wisconsin match point with a kill from Lauren Brewster, but an Irish serving error gave the Badgers a rather anticlimactic win.
