Despite many opportunities, the Wisconsin volleyball team (11-4, 0-4) could not find a way to beat the Northwestern Wildcats (13-1, 3-0) on Friday night. The dominant blocking and timely play of Northwestern caused the Badgers to fall 20-25, 24-26, 24-26 at the UW-Fieldhouse.
Wisconsin, as a team, had a hitting percentage of .208, higher than it had been the past few games. It was the freshmen for UW that dominated at the net, led by outside hitter Elise Walch and right-side hitter Julie Mikaelsen. Walch led both teams with 15 kills and Mikaelsen led with an impressive .727 hitting percentage, adding nine kills on the night.
""Julie came in and gave us great energy, and gave us a lot of great kills. Hitting .727 and not playing the whole match is phenomenal,"" head coach Pete Waite said.
Senior outside hitter Allison Wack, Sophomore middle blocker Alexis Mitchell, and Junior setter Janelle Gabrielsen all added six kills each in the match. Gabrielsen also contributed 35 assists and 10 digs on the night. Senior libero Kim Kuzma continued her streak of double-digit kills, now at 18 straight matches, with 25 digs in the match on Friday.
The Wildcats had a strong, balanced offensive attack, led by Senior middle blocker Naomi Johnson who had 12 kills. However, Freshman outside hitter Stephanie Holthus and red-shirt Senior Sabel Moffett were not far behind with 11 on the night. Moffet also had eight blocks in the match, which added to the team's 13.5 blocks. The Badgers only had two, which prevented them from closing out close sets in the end.
The first set of the match began tight and remained so until the Wildcats were able to pull ahead 21-16. Despite the eight kills from Walch, the Badger offense could not seem to get past the Wildcat blocks. The Badgers came up with a big block from sophomore middle blocker Mary Ording and freshman middle blocker Dominique Thompson to hold off the NU set point and got within four. Johnson, however, finished off the set with a kill to win 25-20.
The Badgers were not going down without a fight however, and came out strong in the second set. They came out early 5-1 with kills from Wack, Gabrielsen and Mitchell. The Wildcats rallied back and tied the score at 10-10, with kills from Holthus and Johnson. The Badgers were still fighting strong and took a 19-16 lead with a kill from Wack. Wisconsin served for the match point at 24-23, but two kills from the Northwestern offense won them the match, 26-24.
The third set again started strong for the Badgers, finding an 11-7 lead after a Wack ace. The Badgers had four aces in the match, while Northwestern only had two. Northwestern was able to tie the score up 15-15 however with their dominant blocking force. Walch and Mikaelsen had big kills in the set though which led, the Badgers to a match point serve again at 24-23. The Badgers, however, once again, couldn't quite close out the match, as the Wildcats took three points in a row to complete the straight-set sweep.
The Badgers head to Michigan this week, playing No. 19 Michigan on Friday and Michigan State on Saturday.
