CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – In a Big Ten battle, the Illinois volleyball team dropped a 3-0 decision to No. 3 Nebraska on Saturday night at Huff Hall. The Illini fall to 12-7 (3-5 B1G) on the yea, while the Cornhuskers improve to 16-2 (7-1 B1G).
"This was a Big Ten match up," said head coach Kevin Hambly. "Two teams were slugging it out, but it came down to execution. [Nebraska's] Foecke got us in a lot of trouble with the exception of her and one other player we really handled passing really well and that is the bummer. If you remove those two, things might have been different. Unfortunately that is not how it works. Our rights and middle hit .333 and outside it -.111, so those stats added up is not going to help us win matches against anyone in the Big Ten. I thought that was the difference when we needed our outside to help us out. So credit to Nebraska, Wong-Orantes was great tonight. She was dialed in, I have said it before she is one of the top liberos. We played with our hearts out, but we didn't execute."
"It was a Big Ten match," added Jocelynn Birks. "We played really great defense throughout, and so did they. It was really hard to score. We made it hard for them to score. It was a battle like most Big Ten matches would be."
In a competitive opening set that saw the match start with three early ties, Nebraska made the first run of the night with a 6-1 sprint to grab a 12-7 lead. The Illini battled back to take a 16-15 lead on a Birks kill. The two teams traded blows back-and-forth as the set moved to the end. With the score knotted at 22-22, the Cornhuskers secured the first period with three-straight points for a 25-22 win.
It was a back-and-forth start to the second set with neither team holding more than a two-point lead until the Huskers jumped out at 12-9. Back-to-back Katie Stadick and Ali Bastianelli kills evened the score at 16-16, but an 8-0 run from the visitors gave the Huskers a 24-16 lead before they closed out the set at 25-18.
Out of intermission, Nebraska jumped out to a quick 4-0 edge before a Naya Crittenden kill put the Illini on the board. Leading 10-9 midway through the set, the Huskers used an 8-2 run to build an 18-11 edge. Three-straight kills from Birks and Stadick cut the deficit to 19-14. The two teams then traded points as the Huskers edged towards match point, before back-to-back kills from Cornhusker Cecilla Hall sent the visitors to a 25-19 win in the third set and the 3-0 match victory.
Birks and Crittenden led the Illini attack with nine kills each, while Stadick added eight and Katie Roustio had six kills on the night.
Four Illini registered double-digit digs with Julia Conard setting the pace with 15, while Brandi Donnelly (13), Birks (12) and Poulter (10) also joined her in double figures.
Poulter added 28 assists and Bastianelli contributed four block assists.
After four-straight home matches, the Illini head to the Hoosier state to take on Indiana on Friday at 6 p.m. CT, before facing Purdue on Sunday at noon.
