3 things that stood out from Wisconsin volleyball's latest Big Ten sweep

After swatting down an overmatched Northwestern team in the first set Sunday afternoon at the UW Field House, the No. 9 Badgers suddenly were being challenged.

The Wildcats, in the first year of what figures to be a long-term rebuilding process under first-year coach Tim Nollan, looked to have the Badgers back on their heels in the second set with a 19-16 lead after a 3-0 run.

Enough was enough.

The Badgers went on a 6-0 run behind the power serving of freshman Charlie Fuerbringer to regain momentum on their way to a 25-13, 25-23, 25-20 victory over the Wildcats.

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Senior Anna Smrek had two kills during that run and then put away the last three kills of the set to close things out.

So was she trying to send a message to the Wildcats, to not get their hopes up?

“A little bit, yeah,” said Smrek, who finished with 13 kills and hit .500. “When another team starts to push back on you a little bit, you can either sit there and take it and think 'OK, we can go to the next set,’” Smrek said. “But it’s kicking in that next-ball mentality, side out.

“I just wanted to keep going. When we can kind of get on a run and everything is working in system and our passers are together and they’re fighting for us, we’ve just got to get the job done and just go up, give confidence to each other and take big rips.”

The Badgers (11-4, 5-1 Big Ten) did a lot of ripping offensively as they ran their winning streak to five, all of them sweeps. They hit .433 for the match, their second highest percentage of the season, led by Sarah Franklin with 14 kills (.355), with Julia Orzol chipping in 10 kills (.526).

“I thought we put up some really good offensive numbers over the match,” coach Kelly Sheffield said. “When you’re hitting over .400 you’d probably take that most nights. Certainly, just about everybody got into it offensively.”

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Since losing their Big Ten opener to Minnesota, the Badgers are hitting .407 to lift their season percentage up to .305.

But despite the offensive output the Badgers found themselves being pushed by the lowly Wildcats (3-11, 1-5), who succeeded in finding some holes in the Wisconsin defense.

That was particularly true for middle blocker Sophia Summers, a transfer from Washington, who had seven kills on her first seven swings through the middle of the second set. She ended the match with seven kills, getting just two more swings the rest of the way.

“We had a tough time the first two sets slowing down their one middle,” Sheffield said. “She wasn’t able to get a kill in the third set. We served a little bit better in her rotations and they found it a little bit tougher to get her the ball. They got stronger. I’m not sure we were as strong defensively as we’d like to pride ourselves on there toward the end.”

Here are three things that stood out in the match.

Rematches can prove difficult

The Badgers and Wildcats were playing each other for the second time in just over two weeks. Wisconsin won the first match at Evanston, Illinois, holding the Wildcats to 16 points in the first two sets and 15 in the third.

With the expansion of the Big Ten to 18 teams, each team only faces three opponents twice in a season now. Wisconsin will have a rematch with Minnesota and two matches against Nebraska coming up in November.

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Playing a team twice in a short period of time can be challenging, as No. 1 Pittsburgh found out Saturday when it lost its first match to SMU, after sweeping the Mustangs three days earlier at home.

While he was relieved to not have that kind of reversal, Sheffield wasn’t sure that his team might’ve been playing with the same level of effort the second time around against the Wildcats.

“I’m not sure we were always working hard enough to get really good swings, terminating swings, out of system for the first part of the match,” he said. “I didn’t think our work rate was particularly high. But again, there might be an element of nitpicking when you’re sweeping a Big Ten opponent and hitting over .400.”

Middle blocker shuffle continues

Sheffield has been mixing and matching his three middle blockers most of the season. Sunday it was Caroline Crawford and Devyn Robinson in the lineup, with Carter Booth watching from the sidelines. Friday against Maryland, Booth played while Robinson watched. In the previous match against Washington, Booth and Robinson started, while Crawford played a more limited role.

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That kind of rotation figures to continue as Sheffield attempts to get production from each of his accomplished middles.

“Each of them has really, really big time strengths,” he said. “And each of them has areas where the others are stronger than them. I think as we’re moving through the season, what they’re wanting to do, the things that you do really well, you want to keep your swagger with that.

“And the things you’ve got to get better at, you’ve got to attack those with purpose to shore those up so opponents can’t attack those weaknesses, or a little bit less so.”

Blocking numbers strong, could be stronger

The Badgers had double-figure blocks for the third consecutive match with 12 against Northwestern. In those three matches they have out-blocked their opponents 37-7. Crawford led the way with eight blocks.

While the Badgers have made progress in that area after a slow start this season, Sheffield still sees plenty of room for improvement.

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“Blocking is not easy,” Sheffield said. “CC had (eight) blocks and she’ll go back and see a dozen where she probably could’ve made better reads of what the setter was showing and being a little bit late and getting burned on that. But we’re getting better as a blocking team.

“There are times that these guys get pretty frustrated, but we are getting better and the numbers are clearly showing it. But there are a lot of things that we’ve got to continue to work on to build really good habits in that area. That’s one of the exciting things, there’s so much more. You’re putting up some silly blocking numbers but there’s so much (more).”

NORTHWESTERN (kills-digs-blocks) — Wright 0-6-0, Rousseau 10-8-0, Carter 0-5-0, Hazan 2-1-1, Hill 5-0-1, Randorf 6-0-2, Wagner 10-8-1, Reid 0-1-1, Summers 7-0-4, Navarrete 0-3-0. Totals 40-32-5.

WISCONSIN (kills-digs-blocks) — Crawford 3-1-8, Robinson 7-1-4, Franklin 14-9-3, Smrek 13-2-5, Guctekin 0-1-0, Orzol 10-5-2, Fuerbringer 3-14-0, Schumacher 0-14-0. Totals 50-39-12.

Hitting percentage — N .211, W .433. Aces — N 3 (Summers 3), W 5 (Franklin, Guctekin 2). Assists — N 38 (Rousseau 19) , W 49 (Fuerbringer 38). Att. — 7,229.