MADISON, Wis. — An impressive come-from-behind rally in the third set led the No. 2 Wisconsin volleyball team to a 3-1 win over No. 24 Illinois on Saturday night in the UW Field House. A sold-out crowd of 6,012 watched the Badgers win 25-15, 18-25, 26-24, 25-19.

With the match tied 1-1 and Wisconsin (14-1, 6-0 Big Ten) trailing the Illini 23-17 in set three, the Badgers called a timeout to halt a 5-1 Illinois run. Following the break, Wisconsin scored four unanswered points and forced Illinois (11-6, 4-2 Big Ten) to use both of its time outs. UW won nine of the next 10 points, surviving match point twice to secure the set win in extra points, 26-24.

"(It was) kind of an unusual match there," UW head coach Kelly Sheffield said. "You have one team that comes out and kind of puts it … there wasn't a whole lot we could do wrong (in the first set). You're siding out at 81 percent and they're hitting zero (but) tables got turned there for the second (set) and we really struggled with our passing and they couldn't really do a whole lot wrong. And then it was two teams just going from there.

"Obviously that third set was the comeback. It was pretty big. I liked how we started playing clean, which we hadn't really played clean for most of the third and second sets. Our passing wasn't real great, we weren't serving real well and then our serving got us back into the match. We started playing some defense and then we started feeling good about ourselves in the fourth."

Set four looked to be just as much of a challenge with nine tie points and two lead changes. After back-to-back Illini kills tied the set at 15, junior Lauryn Gillis struck down a kill to give UW a lead it would hold for the remainder of the match. Junior Kelli Bates dealt two consecutive aces and sophomore Tionna Williams hit four kills in the final nine points of the set, finishing off the match with a 25-19 set victory.

"Well one I'm thinking, 'Oh it's an overpass so I've got to be ready,'" William's said of her match-winning kill. "Two, don't stand in the net, don't touch the net. We work on it quite a bit, overpasses thanks to this guy right here (Sheffield). Sometimes he prefers us to hit it, but if I see an opening, which I did where I placed it, then I normally try to swipe it. Be a little aggressive, but smart at the same time." 

Wisconsin recorded a .329 hitting percentage (61 kills - 14 errors - 143 attempts) through four sets, dishing out 10 aces and narrowly out digging the Illini 65-60. Illinois hit .248 percent (52-16-145) and aced the Badgers only once on 84 serves. 

Williams led the Badger offense, hitting a career-high 18 kills and a season-high .708 hitting percentage with one error on 24 attempts, as well as recording five total blocks. Senior Haleigh Nelson added 12 kills, seven digs and two blocks, while redshirt senior Romana Kriskova put away 10 kills and added a service ace.

Bates recorded 18 digs, two aces and a block for UW, while senior Lauren Carlini and freshman M.E. Dodge each tabbed 10 digs. Carlini led Wisconsin with 50 assists, earning her 64th career double-double, and added two blocks.

The Badgers claimed set one, 25-15, and held the Illini to a .000 hitting percentage (6-6-27) in the period. Wisconsin sprinted out to a 10-3 lead, keeping a safe seven-point distance for much of the set. Five unanswered points widened the Badgers' lead, to 23-11, keeping Illinois at bay despite the Illini stealing four of the final six points.

In the second set, the teams battled through to a 6-6 tie before Illinois took off on an 11-2 run to lead 17-8. A UW rally late in the set couldn't turn the tables, however, and Illinois took the period, 25-18, to knot the match at one set apiece.

"As a team," Nelson explained, "kind of how we always have been is whenever we're playing and even when our backs are totally against the wall and we're down by quite a few points, we always altogether believe that we can win any set no matter what the score is. It just takes a clean, aggressive game and a lot of communication by everybody. When you know that all six people on the floor and all nine people on the bench believe that you can win a set, then you can really do anything. So, even though you're down in that third set and things look pretty grim, nobody on our bench or on our side of the net thinks we're going to lose any set ever."

"I don't ever think it's good to lose," Sheffield said. "You're battling, it's the Big Ten and you're playing against some great teams. You're going to get smacked around at times.

"The thing we talk about a lot is how you respond in those situations, it's not just volleyball, its life as well so when you get knocked down, you've got a choice to stay down or get up and punch back and so I thought our team did a pretty good job of punching back."

The second-ranked Badgers return to the UW Field House on Wednesday, taking on No. 1 Minnesota at 8 p.m. The match, which is already sold out, airs live on the Big Ten Network.