With the Big Ten season already half over, every remaining match of the season for the No. 25 Wisconsin volleyball team (5-7 Big Ten, 15-9 overall) will have major implications on their standings at the end of November.
That said, the Badgers' home loss to Michigan State (4-8, 12-11) did them no favors in moving up the conference ladder. The heartbreaking 24-26, 25-23, 25-27, 25-21, 7-15 defeat Friday night was their fifth loss in six matches.
I think after our four game losing streak [last week], the team really kind of turned it around with attitude and we had a great week of practice,"" senior middle blocker and captain Audra Jeffers said. ""It hurts to lose a close one like this, but I really thought this week at practice, the team was starting to come around. We just have to take the good things out of this match and move forward and keep our heads up.""
In the first set, Wisconsin jumped out to an 8-3 start and had the crowd fired up before Michigan State rallied to tie the score at 10 and kept things close to the end. Knotted at 23, the Spartans forced a set point on a kill from junior middle blocker Vanessa King. But junior outside hitter Brittney Dolgner gave Wisconsin another shot with kill of her own. However, Michigan State got another kill from King and a service ace to earn the first win.
The second and third sets were close throughout, with neither team earning more than a four point advantage at any point. Michigan State took the third and had Wisconsin fighting to stay alive in the fourth. Things looked bleak early on, as the Badgers started the round in a 6-12 deficit. But a number of Spartan errors and a barrage of eight kills from the Wisconsin offense fueled a rally that tied the score at 18. Riding with the momentum, Wisconsin took seven of the last 10 points and sent the game into a fifth set.
But Michigan State came out swinging to finish off the night, jumping out to a 5-2 lead off of two blocks, two Badger hitting errors and a kill. Extending the lead to a 10-6 margin, Wisconsin was forced to take a timeout to slow down the onslaught, but the Spartans would end up taking five of the last six points to finish the night on a strong note.
""I think it's hard to lose in five [sets] because you work so hard to get there,"" Dolgner said. ""If you are split with games, 1-1, and the other team [goes] up 2-1, you fight so hard to get to that fifth game. It just sucks to go down like that.""
There were a number of good things to take from the loss, including a 12 kill performance off the bench from outside hitter Caity DuPont and an eight kill, 12 assist, 12 dig effort from freshman setter and outside hitter Janelle Gabrielsen. With just two more kills, Gabrielsen would have been the first player since the 1980s to post a triple double for Wisconsin. Jeffers also had a solid night, throwing down 11 kills and six blocks, including two solos.
But the Badger errors were the major factors in the game. Wisconsin had five blocking errors, 35 attack errors, six receiving errors and nine service errors. Of particular concern is the errors at the service line, that have plagued the Badgers all season long, as they have committed 28 more errors than their opponents over the course of the year.
""There were just too many errors on our side of the net tonight,"" UW head coach Pete Waite said on Friday. ""In the fourth [we] made a good comeback, we just got down big [in the fifth]. At some critical times, whether they were service errors, hitting errors, net fouls, they are all points for the other team in rally scoring and it gave them enough momentum to make some moves on us.""
Wisconsin will try to get its conference season a jump start when they battle last place Ohio State in Columbus Friday and No. 18 Michigan in Ann Arbor Saturday. Both games are scheduled to start at 5:00 p.m.
