Oct. 15, 2004

Final Stats

Iowa City, Iowa - Illinois won its third Big Ten match in a row with a convincing 30-19, 30-22, 30-16 victory at Iowa. The Illini move to 13-3 overall, 5-2 in the Big Ten ahead of an important conference match at #2 Minnesota on Saturday evening. Iowa falls for the seventh time in a row and move to 9-11, 1-7.

Illinois continues to hit at a high percentage. After hitting .462 in the victory over Michigan State last week, the Illini followed that up with a season-best .472 night in Iowa City. The Illini were especially potent in the first and third games, hitting .500 and .528, respectively.

Jen Hynds, playing in her third straight match after missing eight matches due to an ankle injury, led Illinois with 19 kills while hitting a match-high .680. The redshirt freshman had nine kills in the third game alone. Illinois is now 8-0 with Hynds in the line-up. Hynds is playing some of her best volleyball of the year with 37 kills in the past three matches.

Big Ten Player of the Week Jessica Belter was at the heart of the Illinois attack. Hitting from the middle and the opposite side, Belter belted 13 kills and hit .462 on the night. The senior was especially potent in game two as she posted six kills and hit .417. Rachel Van Meter was also in double figures in kills with 10, while hitting .421

Illinois also used the block to its advantage with 10 blocks, the most since posting 15 blocks in the victory over Miami (Ohio) on Sept. 4. Hynds led the way with five blocks followed by Belter and Macdonald, who added four.

Illinois trailed just once in the match, that was 1-0 in the third game. Illinois never trailed in the opening game. With the Illinois leading 13-11, the Illini went on an 11-4 run to take command of the game 24-15. The Illini hit .500 in the opening game behind six kills from Hynds. The Illini made just on hitting error in 34 swings. Iowa meanwhile hit just .130 in the opening game. Carolyn Giese had eight of Iowa's 15 kills. Giese finished with a team-high for the Hawkeyes.

Illinois exploded to an 18-11 lead in game two and never looked back and also led 21-11 before closing out game three. The match took just one hour and 15 minutes.

"We really wanted to keep the energy up on our side of the net and I think we did that," Hynds said afterward. "We really practice our blocking and closing the seams during practice this week."

On being back in the line-up, Hynds added, "I'm having a blast out there, I can't explain it."

"I was impressed with our blocking tonight," said Head Coach Don Hardin. "We blocked three or four in a row and then they had a lot of attack errors trying to hit around it."

"Stephanie Obermeier continues to improve at setting the backslide and the middle," Hardin added. "She is starting to get some rhythm out there. One of the things we really missed from Erin (Virtue) was her defense, and Steph's six digs really tell you how she has come along in that department."

Lauren Harks led Illinois with 15 digs, while fellow senior Kathleen Bazzetta had a season-best 10 digs.