Sept. 13, 2014
Murfreesboro, Tenn. -Â No. 12 Illinois bounced back from a tough five-set loss earlier today to finish out the Blue Raider Bash with a sweep of Washington State (25-20, 25-20, 25-23). The three-set win snapped the hot Cougars' seven-match winning streak, as WSU drops to 7-2 while Illinois improves to 5-3.
Jocelynn Birks led the match with 16 kills, hitting .323 with a solo block and an ace. Morganne Criswell dominated to hit .562 with 10 kills, while Katie Stadick went seven for 10 with no errors, and Liz McMahon tallied eight kills, hitting .316.
"Jocelynn really got going after the first set," said head coach Kevin Hambly. "Morganne was great. Ali was great. I think it was a good team effort. We were getting to the middles more, which is nice. I would have liked to get Dorn going a little bit more, but she was in that rotation with their best serving, but Katie did a nice job offensively. I thought overall offensively, the setters did a good job to get us all in good places, and our hitters did a good job of putting balls away."
Alexis Viliunas and Allison Palmer spread the ball around, each recording 21 assists, and Viliunas tied with Danielle Davis and Brandi Donnelly for nine digs apiece. The Illini had just six blocks in the match, but three of them included Anna Dorn, as she moved into a tie with Michelle Bartsch '11 for fifth place all-time at Illinois with 422 career block assists.
"This was not a typical match for us," said Hambly. "We hit .404 and they hit .276, and that's not how we want to play. I mean we're happy to hit .400, but we don't want our opponent to hit .276, and I just think they were a good offensive team and they put a lot of pressure on us, and we struggled a bit to stop them. But we stopped them enough that we were able to be steady offensively, and the key was our offensive game today."
Jaicee Harris led the Cougar attack with 14 kills, hitting .417, to go along with eight digs. Chelsey Bettinson followed with 10 kills, two aces and four of the team's six blocks, and Stephanie Logan went seven for 11 on the attack. Kate Sommer led the match with 12 digs, and setter Haley MacDonald totaled 42 assists. WSU entered the match with 45 service aces as a team over its first eight matches, but had just four in tonight's match.
"I think besides Bettinson, we did a really nice job passing," said Hambly. "Bettinson, that's one of the nastiest serves I've seen, but we did a really good job of taking care of the ball. We didn't have any long runs and I thought we were pretty steady. We didn't get aced, we just kept the ball high, and we got some swings and our kids were able to hit us out of it, which was good."
The Cougars won the first three points of the match, but the Illini battled back to tie the score at four then pulled ahead 8-6, a lead they maintained for the majority of the set. However, a service ace by Bettinson tied the score at 18 and a Holt kill put WSU on top, 19-18. After an Illinois timeout, McMahon stepped up with a kill to tie the score at 19 and went on to slam four more over the next seven plays to claim the set for the Illini, 25-20.
The second set started much like the first, as WSU took a 3-1 lead, but Illinois tied the score at four then went on a run with Birks behind the service line to jump up, 8-4. The Cougars battled back within one, 11-10, but Illinois pushed right back in front, 15-10, and went on to take the set once again by a score of 25-20. After hitting .500 in the first set, Illinois continued its efficient attack, finishing the second set with a .468 clip over the first two frames.
“I think we struggled with Bettinson's serves a little bit and she put a lot of pressure on us, so we got down early because she was their first server. But then I thought we played really steady. In the first set, the only rotation we weren't scoring points in was her serve; we were pretty smooth offensively and we started to slowly figure them out.”
Washington State jumped out to a 3-0 lead once again in the third set, but the Illini took longer to respond this time, and a MacDonald-Bettinson block set up a 16-12 advantage. A service error gave Illinois some momentum, as the Illini battled back to tie the score at 16 on a kill by Birks. MacDonald made it 17-16 Cougars, but kills by Criswell and Birks put the Illini on top for the first time in the set, 18-17. WSU continued to fight, and a kill by Harris tied the score at 22. However, Birks put the Illini back on top 23-22 with a kill, and Stadick slammed the overpass from a mishandled pass on a Donnelly serve to seal up the win in three sets, 25-23.
"I think it was necessary for us to close that out," said Hambly. "We didn't want to get into that situation again and lose the (third) set. We talked a lot about, 'This is where we fight to execute,' and I thought the girls fought to execute and they made plays and they had to be determined to do that. I think in the sets earlier this morning, we were hoping the team would give it to us, and this time we took it, and that was good to see."
Liz McMahon was named to the All-Tournament team for the third-straight weekend, joined by Birks and Dorn. Bettinson and Ver'Leea Hardaway represented Washington State, and Virginia Tech's Ashley Battle, MTSU's Jacqueline Lux and Belmont's Alex Martin all received All-Tournament nods as well.
Illinois closes out the preconference slate with a trio of matches next weekend in Omaha, Nebraska. The Illini open the weekend against host Creighton on Friday, Sept. 19, then play two on Saturday, taking out Colorado and South Dakota.
