Volleyball Wraps Up Big Ten Season on the Road
November 22, 2006 | Volleyball
The end is near for the No. 11 Wisconsin volleyball team. The Badgers (22-6 overall, 14-4 Big Ten) head out for their final road trip of the 2006 Big Ten Conference season as they travel to the state of Indiana for match-ups against the Hoosiers (10-20, 1-17) Friday night and No. 22 Purdue (21-8, 11-7) on Saturday.
'It's kind of hard to believe it's here,' UW head coach Pete Waite said of the season's end. 'The season's flown by but when seasons go fast that means they've gone pretty well. We know that the last two matches are important especially for momentum going into the NCAA Tournament. Especially with Purdue, being a top-25 team, we know that's a tough environment to go into.'
Wisconsin currently sits at third place in the conference and can finish no worse than that. Penn State and Minnesota hold the top two spots while fourth-place Ohio State and Purdue remain three matches behind the Badgers.
UW heads into the weekend coming off a three-game sweep over Iowa last Friday in the Field House. The team's three seniors were honored before the match and each of them put up big numbers in the win. Maria Carlini finished with a double-double, leading all players with 18 kills and adding 11 digs. Amy Bladow notched a team-high .450 hitting percentage while contributing 12 kills. In her first full match of the season, Katie Lorenzen worked both sides of the ball, pacing the Badger offense with 48 assists and recording a career-high 13 digs.
Aside from Carlini and Lorenzen's dig counts, three other players finished with double-digit digs in the match including juniors Amanda Berkley and Jocelyn Wack, and freshman Brittney Dolgner as the Badgers had 69 digs in only three games.
'I was especially pleased with Katie Lorenzen,' Waite said. 'One of the main reasons we wanted her to start was she needed some court time, if anything happens to Jackie (Simpson), we wanted her to be ready to go. I think ' we've probably got two of the best setters in the Big Ten as far as experience and skill level so we wanted to give her that time on the court with the starting group because she's been working so hard all season.
'Bladow obviously has gone from starting as a freshman and then starting as a senior and she really during that time, had to change her work ethic and has made an impact on the team because of the energy she brings. She's such a tough kid and if you 're going to go into a street fight with somebody, that'd be the one you want to go with and that's important for our group.
'Maria has done a great job going from a middle blocker in high school to become an all-around player not just as an outside hitter but to play backrow, that 's a very difficult transition to make and she made it smoothly. That was probably the best I've seen her play in the last two weeks and again, she's kind of coming off the whole heel injury and she's getting healthy and I think she 's looking good again.'
Wisconsin's win over Iowa put the team at 22 wins on the season, marking the eighth straight year that the Badgers have recorded at least 22 wins under Waite. It is also the 13th-straight season of 20 or more wins for the UW.
The Badgers face last-place Indiana Friday night at 7 p.m. ET in University Gym. The Hoosiers won their first Big Ten match of the season against Michigan but since then have dropped the last 17-straight, including a 30-9, 30-17, 30-27 sweep from UW on Oct. 15. The nine-point tally in game one tied the record for fewest points scored against UW in a 30-point rally score game.
Not to be overlooked though, Indiana did claim one game over Illinois last weekend and are led by sophomore Erica Short's 4.36 kills per game.
'Some of those teams are the most dangerous types of teams when you go into their home environment,' Waite said on Indiana. 'This is their last weekend of play, period. So at times their seniors can get really cranked up and just play out of their minds because they know their careers will be ending after the weekend. '
UW then heads to West Lafayette, Ind., Saturday to face Purdue at 7 p.m. ET in the newly remodeled Intercollegiate Athletic Facility. The match will be broadcast on a tape-delay basis by ComCast Sports Net on Sunday at Noon. Back on Oct. 13, Wisconsin, then ranked 14th, upset then-No. 9 Boilermakers with a 30-12, 30-20, 31-29 sweep in the Field House. Purdue heads into the final weekend on a two-match winning streak but the Boilermakers dropped four straight, including two home match-ups, before that.
'That was pretty shocking to everybody,' Waite said regarding Purdue 's four-game losing streak. 'We know that they're a really strong team and they went through a tough stretch there but usually when a team goes through a bad stretch, their staff finds a way to change things and make them a better team coming out of it. So they also know that this is a big match as far as NCAA tournament selection and standings.'
Sophomore Danita Merlau leads the Boilermakers with 3.78 kills per game while sophomore Stephanie Lynch, the reigning Big Ten and AVCA National Player of the Week, is hitting a team-high .377 and contributing 2.68 kills per game.
Once the Badgers finish things off in Indiana, the team will travel back home to await the NCAA tournament announcement between 2-3 p.m. on Sunday on ESPNews. Fans can join the team at the McClain Center auditorium, beginning at 1:45 p.m. for the selection show. Free parking is available in lot 17, the ramp north of Camp Randall Stadium. Follow the signs to the auditorium.
