The Iowa volleyball team fell to the No. 23 Wisconsin Badgers on Wednesday night, 3-1.
The match was a roller coaster, despite an inspired effort by the Black and Gold.
“I thought we competed really hard,” head coach Sharon Dingman said. “It’s something I talked to the team about. I think they know they competed really hard, and that was one of the areas we really wanted to fix from last weekend, we just really didn’t feel like we competed well last weekend. Tonight we competed hard enough to win, but obviously we didn’t execute well enough.”
Both teams looked sharp, but Iowa’s frontline was too much for the Badgers to handle in the first set. With huge kills from Alex Lovell, Alessandra Dietz, and Erin Leppek, the Hawkeyes stopped the Badgers from getting into any real rhythm. Helped out by a team total of six blocks, Iowa took the first set, 25-17.
Dietz, Leppek, Lauren Brobst, and Radke all stood tall against a tough Badger defense, totaling 11 total team blocks.
“It’s really important that we keep good energy in the front row when we get blocks and kills,” Dietz said. “When our back row passes well, we feel like it’s really important and that it’s our responsibility to get kills fro them. Our centers made it pretty easy, too.”
Tonight was the first time the Hawkeyes took the first set since their matchup against Milwaukee last month.
But Wisconsin was able to tighten things up in the second set and earn a decisive victory 25-19, with the Black and Gold hanging tough and putting up a good fight, never trailing by more than 6 points.
Perhaps the biggest difference between the first two sets was errors. The Badgers committed 11 in the first set, in comparison with Iowa’s 5 and while Iowa’s total didn’t increase in the second set, Wisconsin was able to cut its total to 4, a key statistic that no doubt played a factor.
The final two sets were much of the same, with close scoring the entire game until the final few minutes where the Badgers were able to pull away, winning 25-17 and 25-20, respectively.
“We let them go on runs, but then we were able to come back and go on runs of our own. I was pleased with how close we kept it,” Dingman said.