Sept. 27, 2014Champaign, Ill. - No. 16 Illinois continued its winning ways on Saturday night, capturing its sixth straight win to complete a perfect Big Ten opening weekend with a straight-set victory over Rutgers. The Illini hit an impressive .473 in the match while siding out at an 80 percent rate to capture three straight wins by a score of 25-15. With the win, the Illini improve to 10-3 (2-0 Big Ten), while Rutgers falls to 7-8 (0-2 Big Ten).
"It was good to see us come out and compete harder than we did last night," said senior opposite hitter Liz McMahon, who led the match with 13 kills. "I thought offensively we had a strong match; we were pretty aggressive."
McMahon hit .435 with 13 kills on the night, while Jocelynn Birks hit .360 with 12 kills and Morganne Criswell went .444 with 10. The Illini's three remaining hitters did not commit an error, as Maddie Mayers (.636) tallied seven kills in her second start of the year, and Anna Dorn (.800) and Ali Stark (.500) each had four. As a team, the Illini hit .473, which is second only to the Illini's performance against Manhattan (.475) on Sept. 12, 2003, since rally scoring began in 2001.
"I thought offensively what I really liked was that we only hit three balls out of bounds for the match, which is a really low number," said head coach Kevin Hambly. "We had eight errors, but five of those were blocks. We just didn't give away a lot of points."
Setters Alexis Viliunas and Allison Palmer quarterbacked the Illini's efficient attack, as Viliunas recorded 25 assists and Palmer put up 18.
"I thought all of our pins were taking good cuts," said Hambly, "and our setters were putting them in good rhythm."
Illinois won the serve and pass battle, landing seven aces while allowing just one to the Scarlet Knights, led behind the line by Birks with three aces and Brandi Donnelly with two.
"I thought our passing was really good," said Viliunas. "So we were able to get our middles in the game, which really helped a lot with our pins. I think our attackers did a really good job."
Donnelly led the back-line defense with 10 digs, and Birks and Viliunas each had seven, while Danielle Davis chipped in six. Mayers was the top Illini at the net, posting three of Illinois' five blocks.
An early service run by Donnelly capped off by an ace gave Illinois a quick 7-1 lead in the first set, and Birks extended the advantage with back-to-back aces to make it 13-3. A block by Alex Lassa and Mikaela Matthews allowed Rutgers to score on a serve for the first time at 17-9, but Illinois closed the set with a McMahon kill win the first, 25-15.
The Illini kept the pressure on in the second set, hitting .536 and siding out at an 81 percent rate with just one error in the whole set as Illinois won the second, 25-15.
Rutgers fought hard out of the break to take its first real lead of the night, 8-6, in the third. However, a Davis ace tied the score at eight, and six straight Illini kills, three from Birks and three from McMahon, made it 14-9, and the Illini never looked back.
"They've done that for a while now," said Hambly of his veteran pin hitters. "They can do that. They're both very offensive. When those two are going, they're as good as anybody."
Illinois went on to win 11 of the next 16 points to take the third set once again by a score of 25-15 and claim its third straight 3-0 victory.
Illinois returns to Huff Hall on short rest to host No. 17 Minnesota on Wednesday, Oct. 1, in the Illini's first mid-week match of the season. The Orange and Blue will face off with the Golden Gophers live on the Big Ten Network beginning at 6:30 p.m.
