MADISON, Wis. -- It may not have been the prettiest match of the season for the top-ranked Wisconsin volleyball team but the Badgers still remained undefeated on the year. Wisconsin swept Rutgers, 25-18, 25-20, 25-16, on Friday evening in the UW Field House.
Fourteen Badgers (5-0, 5-0 B1G) saw action in the match as head coach
Kelly Sheffield was looking for the right combination to spark his team.
Wisconsin came out flat, allowing the Scarlet Knights (1-4, 1-4) to jump out to a 5-0 lead in the first set. Behind the service of
Molly Haggerty, UW scored seven straight points to take a 7-5 lead. Despite hitting .480 (13 kills – 1 error – 25 attempts) and outblocking Rutgers, 4-0, in the set, the Badgers struggled to pull away until midway through the period.
The Badgers led the entire second set but UW's hitting percentage dropped to .241 (13-6-29) as it won by five points.
In the third set, Rutgers again jumped out to the lead, this time 3-0, before the Badgers rallied again behind the service of Haggerty. The outside hitter tallied two of her match-high three service aces to put Wisconsin up 9-5.
Wisconsin hit .293 (36-12-82) for the match, its first time below .300 this season, while holding Rutgers to .144 (34-20-97). Seven Badgers put away two-or-more kills as Haggerty led the team with eight kills.
Danielle Hart added seven kills and
Dana Rettke put away six attacks while hitting a match-high .545 (6-0-11).
Devyn Robinson (5),
Grace Loberg (4),
Jade Demps (3) and
Sydney Hilley (2) also scored for UW. Rutgers was led by Kamila Cieslik with a match-high 10 kills.
The Badgers outblocked Rutgers 11.5 – 4.0 behind seven blocks from Rettke. Robinson chipped in four stuffs. Wisconsin also finished with a 33-30 edge in digs behind a match-high 13 saves from
Lauren Barnes.
The biggest improvement tonight from the Badgers was at the service line where they had a season-high nine aces. In addition to Haggerty with three scores,
Izzy Ashburn tallied three aces and Barnes added two aces.
Straight from the court
Head Coach Kelly Sheffield:
"The subs that we did tonight had nothing to do with me trying to get people time, that was me trying to find somebody who's going to perform at a higher level. I didn't think we did a very good job blocking the left side, I thought we were pretty soft. We got a lot of blocks but there was a … the number of negative blocks was twice as many as the stop blocks. I thought we were pretty soft with our hands we had a tough time closing down the steam."
On serving tough:
"We worked on it quite a bit this week and we had four balls in the net in the first set and one went long. We've been working on trying to be a little bit cleaner with our hand contact, reach in a little bit higher, that's definitely been a point of emphasis of just getting a little bit more consistent.
"I thought Dana (Rettke) really served the ball a lot better, Dana and Izzy (Ashburn) served the ball a lot better tonight. They were a lot more consistent, that's something they've been working really hard on in the gym and I thought it paid off a little bit behind the service line for both of them. Both of them have really nasty serves when they're consistent, it puts a lot of pressure on people."
Molly Haggerty:
"I think Kelly's right - there's nothing really to give us great reviews on. I think the whole match we seemed a little tense and tight, and didn't really get into a groove. But that team's scrappy and they played until the whistle ended, and I think a lot of times we assumed the kill went down. From the very beginning, we didn't come out starting with fire and it showed."
Lauren Barnes:
"We could definitely see it as it was going on. I just think we came out flat. We were pretty dead on the court and we need to come out and make our own energy. We don't have fans anymore to make our energy for us and we didn't do well with that tonight. We need to really grasp each other's energy and pick it up from there."
Up Next
Wisconsin wraps up its weekend series with Rutgers on Saturday in the UW Field House. First serve is at 4 p.m. and will be streamed on B1G Network +. Fans can also listen to Jon Arias and Pete Waite call the match on U 100.9 FM in the Madison area or anywhere using the iHeartRadio app.
