The No. 4 Badgers’ winning streak continued as they swept Indiana (14-10, 5-7) in Bloomington.
Wisconsin (20-2 Big Ten, 11-1 overall) outplayed the Hoosiers winning in three sets, 25-18, 25-15, and 25-18. Saturday night’s match was Wisconsin’s 11th consecutive victory in the Big Ten conference.
Although the Badgers won, Wisconsin head coach Kelly Sheffield did not think the girls played their best game.
“We didn’t play well, we didn’t play to the standards we hold for ourselves,” Sheffield said. “We don’t really look too much into the scores or the wins and losses, we try to play the game the right way.”
The Badgers might not have played to their “standards,” but they still beat the Hoosiers both offensively and defensively in Saturday night’s match. Senior middle blocker Dominique Thompson’s seven blocks led the Badgers, who out-blocked the Hoosiers 12-8. Junior libero Taylor Morey dominated the back row with 10 of 31 digs for the Badgers. Thompson also had the Badgers’ team high in kills with nine for the match.
Senior outside hitter Ellen Chapman and freshman outside hitter Kelli Bates contributed to the offensive effort with eight and seven kills respectively for the match. Indiana’s junior outside hitter Amelia Anderson led the Hoosiers with nine kills while sophomore middle blocker Jazzmine McDonald had five blocks throughout the match.
Wisconsin’s first match of the second half of Big Ten play might not have looked exactly like what Sheffield wanted to see.
“Maybe it’s a little bit unfair that you’re getting on them for having a match where everybody was pretty poor but that’s what you do as coaches,” Sheffield said. “Tonight wasn’t really pretty and we’ve got to sit on that for a long week, and maybe that’s ok so we can get refocused for the Michigan schools.”
Sheffield holds his team accountable for every match played. Wisconsin’s tough level of competition has gotten them 25 straight set wins thus far in their season.
The Badgers will hope to continue this dominance as they travel east over the weekend to play at Michigan (5-7, 10-12) Friday and Michigan State (6-6, 13-10) Sunday.
UWBadgers.com contributed to this report.
