The University of Wisconsin volleyball team picked a good time to play its best match of the season.
The No. 13 Badgers overcame a slow start and roared back to blow out No. 5 Penn State 23-25, 25-23, 25-13, 25-13 before a sellout crowd at the UW Field House.
Junior Grace Loberg had a career high 21 kills to lead a balanced UW attack that dominated the Nittany Lions over the last 2½ sets to win consecutive matches against Penn State for the first time in program history.
After winning a tough first set, Penn State (9-2, 2-1 Big Ten) was up 17-12 in the second set when UW coach Kelly Sheffield called a timeout. When play resumed, Loberg got a kill and junior setter Sydney Hilley had back-to-back aces to trigger a 7-1 run that gave UW a lead. Penn State briefly regained a 21-20 lead, but the Badgers, who had struggled much of the year to finish off close sets, closed with a 5-2 run to even the match on a kill by Loberg.
From then on it was all UW (7-4, 3-0 Big Ten). After that timeout the Badgers outscored the Nittany Lions 63-32 the rest of the match.
“That’s obviously a good win,” Sheffield said. “But more than that, how we played is better than even the results.
“I thought our serving kicked into another gear in the second set. Those last two sets of holding them to about .050, those are pretty low numbers against a team that has as much offensive talent as they do. I thought defensively we were awfully good and we got better as the match went on.”
That’s the team many expected to see as the Badgers were picked to win the Big Ten Conference in the coaches’ preseason poll. But until Wednesday they had faltered against top level teams, going 0-4 against teams currently in the top 10.
“We talked about how we might have surprised some people tonight,” Loberg said. “But us as a team, we were not surprised at all. We work hard every day and we know what we’re capable of. I think we showed that tonight.”
The Badgers showed off a balanced attack as they hit .310 for the match against a defense that was holding opponents to a .158 mark over its first 11 matches.
“I thought Syd did a really good job of keeping them off balance with who she was going to and the plays she was running,” Sheffield said. “I thought Grace was really aggressive and working what they were giving, working the entire court. And I thought Syd was awfully special, getting everybody involved and putting the hitters in good positions.”
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