The Iowa volleyball team fell in two-straight games to No. 10 Minnesota (3-1) and Wisconsin (3-2). The Hawkeyes only won three sets over the weekend in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
The Hawkeyes’ stamina doomed them. The Iowa offense hit .300 in the opening set against Minnesota on Oct. 12 and racked up 15 kills, dragging the set into extra serves but eventually losing, 26-24. And then the Hawkeyes won the second set, 25-18.
But Iowa only hit .56 in the third set and .132 in the fourth, compared with Minnesota’s .282 and .394.
“Minnesota came out after the intermission really aggressive and determined,” head coach Sharon Dingman said in a release. “Early on, we matched their aggressiveness and made some plays, but in the last two sets we couldn’t slow them down."
The same fault plagued the Hawkeyes against the Badgers on Oct. 13 as well. Dingman said her team “did not execute” in the fifth set. The Hawkeyes’ hitting percentage dropped from .440 in the second set (which they won, 25-14), to .103 in the fifth (which they lost, 15-10).
“We got away from our serving game plan in the final set,” Dingman said. “We let them get on a run and didn’t do what we needed to do.”
— by Molly Irene Olmstead