Sept. 25, 2011

Box Score

MADISON, Wis. - On Sunday afternoon in the Fieldhouse, No. 3 Illinois cruised past Wisconsin for its fifth sweep of the season and joined No. 13 Purdue as the only undefeated team remaining in the NCAA Top-25 at 13-0 overall. The Illini secured a second Big Ten road win after a long weekend in Minneapolis and Madison, placing them atop the conference standings at 2-0 along with Nebraska and Purdue.

"Time will tell how tough this road trip will be but it was huge to get two road wins to start the Big Ten," head coach Kevin Hambly said. "I like this team's ability to find a way to win and how they grinded out two wins this weekend."

The Illini remained perfect and notched a top-10 win over No. 9 Minnesota while the two teams ahead of them in rankings stumbled in Pac-12 conference play over the weekend. No. 1 California (13-2) and No. 2 Stanford (8-3) each lost twice, both falling to No. 7 UCLA (11-2) and No. 12 USC (9-3). The shake-up at the top of the rankings could potentially vault Illinois to its first No. 1 ranking in school history when the AVCA poll comes out on Monday. The highest AVCA ranking in the program's history is No. 2, which it achieved during the week of Sept. 6, 1988.

"We don't put much stock into it because it doesn't mean much right now," said Hambly of the possibility of being ranked first. "It would be nice to get the recognition if it were to happen and any publicity is good, so the fans and media will get excited about it."

The Illini made quick work of the Badgers, winning 25-18, 25-17, 25-22 in front of 3,686 fans in attendance. After taking a 7-6 lead in the opening set, Illinois controlled the remainder of the match and never trailed again. The Badgers had double the amount of attack errors as the Illini (22-11) and posted nine service errors with zero aces. On the other side of the court, Illinois served strong with six aces, led by three from senior Michelle Bartsch.

"We served tough and got them out of system a lot," Hambly said. "Wisconsin had more errors than they would have liked, and we kept ours downs which was the difference in the match."

Senior Colleen Ward led the offensive attack with a match-high 12 kills while Bartsch turned in her 10th double-double of the year and third straight with 10 kills and 10 digs. The Illini out-hit the Badgers .213-.133 and held the advantage on the blocking front 7-6.5.

Illinois returns home next weekend for a pair of Big Ten matches versus Indiana (8-6) and No. 13 Purdue (13-0). The Illini will square off against the Hoosiers on Friday night followed by a showdown with the Boilermakers on Saturday night. Both contests are slated to begin at 7 p.m. at Huff Hall.