Nov. 29, 2008

Evanston, Ill. - Illinois couldn't have closed the regular season playing much better. The Illini take a five-match winning streak into the NCAA Tournament after a 25-18, 25-16, 25-17 victory over Northwestern in Evanston. The victory comes one night after sweeping Wisconsin in Madison. The Illini close the regular season at 24-7, 15-5 and in third place in the Big Ten. The NCAA selection show will be at 9 pm Sunday night on ESPNU where Illinois seems primed to grab one of the top 16 national seeds.

Illinois ends the year 8-2 on the road in the conference with its only two losses coming to no. 1 Penn State and no. 12 Minnesota. After an Oct. 17 loss to the Wildcats in Huff, Illinois has won 11 of its last 13 matches.

"There has been significant improvement in some key areas down the stretch," said Illinois head coach Don Hardin. "It's a long, grueling Big Ten season, but it makes it better when you're winning."

The Illini had their outside hitters working in full force Saturday night. Kylie McCulley had one of the best matches of her career with 16 kills and nine digs while hitting a robust .542. Laura DeBruler was equally as impressive with 15 kills and a .312 hitting percentage while adding five block assists. The sophomore wraps up her second consecutive conference title in kills per set.

"Kylie is a special athlete and we have yet to discover what she can do because of her foot injury," Hardin said. "For an outside hitter to hit over .500 with that many swings tells you what kind of night she had."

Johannah Bangert, the nation's leader in blocks had six block assists for the night and 11 for the weekend and should become the first Illinois player to lead the the country in blocks. Bangert also had six kills while hitting .400 Saturday night.

"Johannah is starting to connect with our setters and she has elevated her offensive game," Hardin said. "While she has gone through that process, she hasn't let the affect her blocking, which has been tremendous all season."

Hillary Haen, McCulley, Ashley Edinger and Lizzie Bazzetta each had aces for Illinois as the Illini end the weekend with 12 aces to just two services errors, one of the reasons for their dominance in the final two matches of the season.

None of three sets were really in doubt. In set one, the Illini used the service arm of Haen to rattle off eight straight points to take a 15-7 lead. DeBruler had six kills and hit .500 in the opening frame.

In set two, DeBruler scored five straight points for the Illini and McCulley had an ace as the Illini extended an 8-6 lead to 15-6. McCulley started to really heat up in that set with six kills and a .500 attack percentage in that set.

In set three, Northwestern used a 6-2 run to tie the score at 8-8, but the Illini used a 10-4 run to go in front 18-12 and never looked back. McCulley had seven kills and hit .545 in that set.

Illinois out-dug Northwestern 41-28 paced by 16 digs from Edinger. Haen and Bazzetta were right on the money in most of their sets finishing with 26 and 17 assists, respectively.