Badgers sweep Illini off their feet

Thursday, November 3

Urbana-Champaign, IL

7 p.m.

Wisconsin Badgers

18-3,12-1Big Ten

Illinois

11-12,6-7Big Ten

Wisconsin

Illinois

Julia Orzol and Danielle Hart go up for a block against a Minnesota hitter.

Badgers sweep Illini off their feet

November 03, 2022 | Volleyball

Box Score

No.3 Wisconsin defeats Illinois, 3-0

By: Olivia Bozich

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Another dominating performance at the net led the third-ranked Wisconsin volleyball team to a 25-22, 25-19, 25-22 sweep over Illinois on Thursday night.

Junior Sarah Franklin and sophomore Julia Orzol combined for 23 of UW's 39 kills in the match. Franklin led all hitters with 14 kills followed by Orzoł with nine.

The Badgers (18-3, 12-1 BIG) extended their 11-match win streak with a hitting percentage of .221 (39-16-104) to hold Illinois (11-12, 6-7 BIG) to just .065 (34-27-107). The Fighting Illini were led by Raina Terry with 13 kills for the night.

Izzy Ashburn led Wisconsin in assists, recording 13 helpers, while MJ Hammill closely followed with 12 assists.

The Badgers out-blocked the Illini 11.0-6.0 with Danielle Hart leading the Badgers with eight stuffs followed by Devyn Robinson with four blocks.

The Fighting Illini also finished with a plus-3 advantage in digs (43-40) with Illinois' Kayla Burbage leading all players with 12 digs. Wisconsin was led by Ashburn with 10 digs followed by grad transfer Shanel Bramschreiber, who earned her second career start at libero for UW, with nine digs.

The Illini dominated the service line with a 7-3 service ace advantage over the Badgers. Ashburn led UW with two aces, while Orzoł earned one.

Straight from the Court
Head Coach Kelly Sheffield
"I thought we did a great job with serving. Both teams put so much pressure behind the service line. I thought we did a great job passing also. It's hard to explain how good the serving was that we saw tonight, and we will see that again on Sunday as well.

Coach Sheffield on arranging the lineup
"We are very fortunate to have players like Devyn that can go middle or right like she did tonight. We are really fortunate to have a player like Jade who can come in and doesn't miss much of a beat."

Sarah Franklin
"Everything was working for us as a team, and that is something we have been working on. Staying together as a unit, staying together as a team the whole game no matter what the points are, so I think we did a really good job with that tonight."

Notes to Know

The Badgers extended their winning streak to 11, which tied for the 10th winning streak in program history.
Wisconsin out-blocked Illinois, 11-6, which also marked the 13th match this season that UW has had 10-or-more blocks.
Senior Izzy Ashburn earned her third career double-double with 13 assists and 10 digs. The setter also recorded two service aces in the match, moving into a tie for fourth on the UW career record list with 146 career aces.
The Badgers held Illinois to a .065 (34-27-107) team hitting percentage, the lowest by a Big Ten opponent this season.
Wisconsin downed Illinois in both matches this season, its second Big Ten foe it has swept this year also sweeping Michigan.

Up next
Wisconsin returns home to the UW Field House to face Indiana on Sunday, Nov. 6 at 1 p.m. The match can be streamed on Big Ten+ and can be heard on Fox Sports 1070.