CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – In front of a sellout crowd of 4,152 boisterous Illini fans, the No. 4 Illinois volleyball team earned its first win over Penn State since 2014 in a five-set battle (15-25, 25-22, 27-25, 23-25, 15-13) on IlliNOISE Night at Huff Hall on Saturday (November 10) night.
With the win, the Illini (24-3, 13-3 B1G) push their win streak to nine matches and improve to 5-0 in five-set matches. UI's last win over the Nittany Lions (20-6, 11-5 B1G) came in 2014 with a 3-1 decision in State College, while the last victory in Huff Hall came in 2011 with a 3-0 sweep on November 11.
The 4,152 fans in attendance marked the 14th match in program history with an attendance over 4,000 and tied for the seventh-best attended match in program history.
Junior Jacqueline Quade paced the Illini with a career-high 29 kills – her 10th career 20-kill outing - and added 12 digs and two blocks for her 10th career double-double and sixth of the season, while redshirt-junior Beth Prince and junior Ashlyn Fleming joined her in double figures with 14 kills and 11 kills, respectively.
Senior Jordyn Poulter put together another outstanding performance as the setter dished out 55 assists, while adding 13 digs, seven kills with no errors on 12 swings for a .583 hitting percentage and six blocks. It was her second-straight double-double, 13th of the season and 36th of her career.
Defensively, senior Ali Bastianelli led with a match-high seven blocks and moved within two stuffs of 700 career blocks, while sophomore Morgan O'Brien registered a team-high 24 digs, marking the eighth 20-dig match of her career. Junior Caroline Welsh notched a career-high 17 digs on the night, with freshman Taylor Kuper also posting 17 digs in the win.
With the match all square at 2-2, the two teams headed to a decisive fifth and final set with the Nittany Lions grabbing a quick 6-3 advantage to start the set. The Illini roared back with a 5-1 run to pull ahead at 8-7 following a PSU error. After trading points over the next several plays, an Illini service error gave PSU a 12-11 lead, but it did not last long as three-straight IU scores gave the home team a pair of match points at 14-12. The Nittany Lions fought off the first, before Poulter and Bastianelli – dubbed the Super Seniors – finished off the 15-13 set win and 3-2 match victory with a block.
The Nittany Lions jumped out to an early 7-2 advantage in the opening set, but back-to-back Prince kills closed the gap to 7-4. From there, the visitors used eight-straight points to build a 16-5 lead midway through the first, before pushing the edge to 23-11. The Illini then strung together four-straight points to close within 23-15, but PSU then used back-to-back kills to take the first, 25-15.
In a much closer second period that saw 15 ties and three lead changes, the Illini grabbed their first advantage of the match on a PSU attack error at 5-4. The two teams then traded points until the Nittany Lions used back-to-back scores to build a 15-12 edge, but UI responded with three-straight points to knot things at 15-15 on a Fleming and Poulter block. With neither team budging, the set entered a 22-22 tie that was broken by three-straight Illini scores – including kills from Quade and Prince and a Poulter ace – for the 25-22 set victory.
In similar fashion in the third, it was back-and-forth action throughout the period with the Illini holding the largest lead of the set at 12-9 following a Quade kill. After a Quade and Bastianelli block knotted the score at 21-21 late in the third, the set went on to see four more ties until a Poulter dump broke a 25-25 score, before a Fleming kill made it 27-25 in favor of the Illini and a 2-1 advantage in the match.
PSU grabbed a quick 6-2 edge in the fourth and continued to lead at 17-12 following a 4-1 mini run. The Illini answered back with four-straight points to close within one at 17-16, but back-to-back PSU scores slowed the rally. With the Nittany Lions leading at 22-17, the Illini pulled within 23-21 on a Quade kill, before another pair of Quade scores cut the lead to one at 24-23, but a PSU block then gave the visitors the 25-23 win and pushed the match to a fifth set.
Illinois heads back on the road next weekend, traveling to Evanston, Ill., for a midweek match against Northwestern on Wednesday (November 14) at 7 p.m. CT, before flying east for a Saturday (November 17) showdown with Rutgers in Piscataway, N.J., at 6 p.m. CT.
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