COLLEGE PARK, Md. – After dropping its first Big Ten Conference match of the season at Ohio State on Friday night, the fourth-ranked Wisconsin volleyball team bounced back by sweeping Maryland on Saturday night. The Badgers downed the Terrapins 25-18, 25-13, 25-13 at the XFinity Center Pavilion.
 
Wisconsin (17-5 overall, 13-1 B1G) dominated the match offensively, The Badgers hit over .400 for the third time this season, connecting on .406 percent (49 kills – 10 errors – 96 attempts) while holding Maryland (12-14, 4-10) to an opponent season-low .045 percent (22-18-89). The Terps also finished with an opponent season-low 22 kills.
 
Three UW players tallied 10-or-more kills. Junior Grace Loberg led all players with 13 kills while junior Molly Haggerty (11) and junior Dana Rettke (10) also recorded double figures. Sophomore Danielle Hart added seven kills on nine attempts with no errors for a match-high .778 hitting percentage.
 
The Badgers also controlled the match defensively, outblocking Maryland 8.5 – 5.0 behind six stops by Rettke. Wisconsin finished with a 47-32 advantage in digs as senior Tiffany Clark and freshman Izzy Ashburn shared match-high honors with 13 digs apiece.
 
UW also got back on track from the service line, finishing with a 6-1 advantage in aces. Haggerty and Lauren Barnes both recorded two service aces.
 
 

Straight from the court

 
"What I liked was how we approached the entire day. You could tell when we met earlier in the day to watch some film then got in the gym for serve-and-pass that they did what they needed to do to get themselves in the right frame of mind to come in tonight. I thought the approach tonight was awfully good.
 
"When you play back-to-back on the road, you don't have the advantage of sitting around and wallowing and frustrating, and everything else. You have to take care of everything else. Although we played them a couple of weeks ago, there has been a lot of things that have happened between now and then. I thought everybody played pretty well.
 
"We got back to winning the serve-pass game. We've done that just about every match this year. The first 5 or 10 minutes wasn't real great tonight but after that … You could tell that we were really, really hyper. We settled down after about the first 10 minutes and cleaned things up a lot better and you're certainly proud of the effort that they give because that's not easy to get over.
- Head coach Kelly Sheffield
 

Notes to Know

• Wisconsin held their ninth straight opponent to a hitting percentage under .181.
• Senior Tiffany Clark has recorded 10-or-more digs in five straight matches.

 

Up Next

Wisconsin wraps up its five-match road swing at No. 6 Minnesota on Thursday. First serve is at 8 p.m. from Maturi Pavilion in Minneapolis. The match airs live on the Big Ten Network.