MADISON, Wis. --- A day after struggling with its team play, the top-ranked Wisconsin volleyball team came out of the gate stronger in the second day facing Rutgers. The Badgers (6-0, 6-0 B1G) enjoyed the match more and it showed in a 25-13, 25-11, 25-21 win over the Scarlet Knights on Saturday afternoon in the UW Field House.

Wisconsin dominated Rutgers (1-5, 1-5) in every category, hitting .333 (41 kills – 9 errors – 96 attempts) with five players putting away six-or-more kills.

Senior Grace Loberg led the Badgers with 10 kills while Dana Rettke added nine kills, hitting .529 with no hitting errors (9-0-17). Freshman Devyn Robinson chipped in seven kills and hit .500 (7-1-12) while Danielle Hart and Molly Haggerty both added six kills.

The Scarlet Knights hit just .109 (26-16-92) and didn't have a player hit double figures in kills.

UW once again used strong blocking and backcourt defense to stop the Scarlet Knights. The Badgers outblocked Rutgers 7-2, behind six blocks by Rettke, and finished with a 47-39 advantage in digs, led by 11 saves from Lauren Barnes.

And who could forget that killer block by @gv11loberg that helped the #Badgers win the second set. pic.twitter.com/CVbJWFiHkp

— Wisconsin Volleyball (@BadgerVB) February 6, 2021

Wisconsin also scored on seven service aces, including a match-high three from Grace Loberg.

Straight from the court

Coach Kelly Sheffield:
"I thought our effort coming out of the gate was a little bit better than what it was yesterday, I thought we moved with a lot more intent. We had a better warm up, just locked in from the beginning and that was certainly an emphasis going into today."
 "We didn't have as many negative blocks today as we did yesterday, so that was certainly a positive. We defended a little bit better in the backcourt than what did and I thought we served the ball pretty aggressively both days and put a lot of pressure on (Rutgers). I thought we carried that over from yesterday pretty well."

On Grace and her three service aces:
"Yeah, she got on a run of points and put constant pressure on (Rutgers). She's a player that can go back there and just put ball after ball after ball in there and she's worked hard at developing a good serve. There's some times that she gets some really good hand contact on there and that ball is knuckling and dancing. That run of points was certainly nice."

Grace Loberg:
"We came in this morning and dissected the film, and just looked at things we needed to be a lot cleaner on. I think that was an emphasis coming into today was just like cleaning up our game all around. For me I was getting tooled on the block, which was something that can't continuously happen, so that was the main focus of mine going into the game. I think we just wanted to come out and play a much cleaner game and also just play with more joy and competitive spirit.
 
Sydney Hilley:
"We came back and watched this film and we learned a lot of things and a lot of our emphasis was on moving a lot cleaner and getting to base faster so that we were ready to react to weird things that were happening and then just going out and playing with more competitive spirit and joy. I think we did a good job of coming out and doing that today."

Up Next

Wisconsin travels to Indiana for a weekend series against the Hoosiers in Bloomington, Indiana. First serve is at 3 p.m. both days with matches being streamed on B1G Network+.