BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Behind a season-high team hitting percentage, the No. 1-ranked Wisconsin volleyball team swept another Big Ten Conference opponent to remain undefeated on the year. The Badgers (8-0, 8-0 B1G) downed Indiana 25-23, 25-11, 26-24 on Saturday afternoon.

Wisconsin hit .420 (42 kills – 8 errors – 81 attempts) behind senior Grace Loberg, who hit a career-best .700 with 14 kills on 20 attempts with no errors. Freshman Devyn Robinson wasn't far behind, hitting .556 with 11 kills on 18 attempts and one error. Senior Dana Rettke added a .438 (8-1-16) hitting percentage.

The Hoosiers (2-6, 2-6) hit an opponent season high .250 (34-14-80) behind a .643 hitting percentage (9-0-14) by Leyla Blackwell.

UW continued its strong performance from the serving line, tallying seven aces, including a career-high six service aces from sophomore Izzy Ashburn. The 5-foot-11 defensive specialist scored four-straight aces in the second set to break a 5-5 tie and give the Badgers a 13-5 lead.

The Badgers outblocked Indiana, 8-4, behind four stuffs by Rettke and edged the Hoosiers, 27-26, in digs with Sydney Hilley tying for match-high honors with eight saves.

Like the first match-up on Friday, the Hoosiers came out strong and battled Wisconsin point-for-point until late in the first set. The Badgers broke a 22-22 tie with a kill by Loberg, outscoring Indiana 3-1 over the stretch as another Loberg kill gave UW the win.

It was all Ashburn's serve in the second set that allowed the Badgers to hit .588 (11-1-17) in the period and held Indiana to a .045 (7-6-22) attack percentage.

The Hoosiers pushed Wisconsin to extra points in the third set, battling back from a 17-11 deficit. Indiana rallied to tie the score at 23 and again at 24 before another kill by Loberg and a block from Rettke and Deahna Kraft completed the Badger sweep.

Straight from the court

Head coach Kelly Sheffield
"We hit over .300 all three sets. Both teams were giving different looks than what we were last night. I thought our team played pretty well. Defensively they probably hit a little bit higher overall percentage than what we would like. We got our blocked figured out a little bit as the match went on as that was a struggle.

"Izzy coming in in the second (set) and really flustering them, I thought was a huge key in the match."

Grace Loberg
"We were playing with some great competitive energy. Our goal going into these double weekends is to be better than we were the night before. We wanted to come in and improve on the things we struggled with yesterday and I think we did a good job of that.

On Izzy Ashburn and her serving:
"Izzy Ashburn was extremely valuable to our team today. She got things going for us a ton in that second set. The confidence she had back there puts so much confidence in each of us."

On facing a team in back-to-back matches:
"I like it a lot. We watch film after the first night and see what we struggled with and we can make that an emphasis at serve-and-pass. It's a learning process to see if we can come in that next night and fix the things that we were having trouble with."

Izzy Ashburn on her serve
"I was just getting good hand contact. Yesterday wasn't a great serving day for me. Today I just wanted to help my team out a little bit more. I know that I am a valuable server on this team and the more pressure I put on them, the easier it is for our other servers, and the easier it is for us to come back and attack them. Our team was really letting them have it when I was serving so that really helped a lot."

Up Next

The Badgers wrap up their four-match road trip on Feb. 20-21, traveling to Michigan State for two matches. Match time is 1:30 p.m. CT on Saturday live on the Big Ten Network from Jenison Fieldhouse in East Lansing, Michigan. Sunday's match starts at 2:30 p.m. CT on B1G Network+.