MADISON, Wis. -- In its first home series of the 2021 season, the No. 1 Wisconsin volleyball team swept No. 15 Purdue in night two, not dropping a set all weekend. The Badgers (2-0, 2-0 B1G) downed the Boilermakers 25-18, 25-21, 25-19 in the UW Field House Saturday night.
The heavy-hitting Badgers swung their way to a victory, hitting .360 (44 kills - 8 errors -100 attempts) while holding Purdue (0-2, 0-2) to just .110 (35-21-118).
Wisconsin outblocked the Boilermakers 10-1, behind seven blocks, including three block solos, from senior
Dana Rettke. The Riverside, Illinois, native became just the eighth Wisconsin player to notch 500 career blocks, hitting the mark just three points into the match.
The Badgers also finished with a 50-38 advantage in digs, behind a match-high 11 saves from senior transfer
Giorgia Civita. Redshirt senior
Molly Haggerty added 10 digs and picked up her 20th career double-double by adding 12 kills.
Rettke also led the way on offense, putting away 14 kills while hitting .414 (14-2-29). Purdue failed to have a player record double digits in kills.
Wisconsin started out hot, taking the first set is similar fashion to Friday night's win against the Boilermakers, but saw its first test when the Badgers found themselves down midway through the second set. Trailing 19-14, two kills apiece from
Grace Loberg and Rettke keyed a 6-1 run to give UW a 21-20 lead. Kills from Loberg and Haggerty followed by a Boilermaker hitting error gave Wisconsin a 2-0 set lead.
In the third set, Wisconsin took a early lead 8-3 lead off a six-point serving run by Civita and never looked back, closing the door of Purdue.
Straight from the court:
Kelly Sheffield:
"I thought we did a really good job of battling back in the second set. I don't know how much we were down there but we were down quite a bit and I thought we showed some fighting spirit and cleaned up our game a little bit at that point. I thought that was really big. We gave away too many points tonight, that's for sure. I'd say about 40% of their points were off of our errors so I thought we gave away too much.
"Overall we did a lot of positive things, it felt really good to get to play to matches, to get two matches on back-to-back days and I think everybody in the locker room felt pretty good about that and felt excited that we got that under our belt.
"You're going to learn a lot about the teams in that second match. There are adjustments that are being made."
Senior Setter Sydney Hilley:
"I think one of the biggest things that we're going to have to work on is coverage. Just as a team I feel like we can be a lot more gritty and get in there and cover some balls. I do like how we stayed in the fight, we were down in the second set and I loved our fighting mentality there. That will be something that we will have in every single match we play."
Senior Middle Blocker Dana Rettke:
"I think we made good adjustments and our block was definitely set up in better positions today. I think our mentality was just 'go get the ball, go stuff the ball.' I think when you've got your front row with that mentality you're going to get some blocks."
Up next
The Badgers take their first road trip of the season, traveling to Champaign, Illinois, next weekend to take on the Fighting Illini. First serve is at 4 p.m. on Friday while Saturday's match starts at 11 a.m. and can be seen live on Big Ten Network.
