CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – For the seventh time in the last eight seasons, the Illinois volleyball opened Big Ten Conference action with a pair of wins as the Illini outlasted Northwestern in five (23-25, 25-17, 25-17, 21-25, 15-9) in the league home opener on Saturday (Sept. 25) night in Huff Hall.
Sophomore Raina Terry turned in a season-high 19 kills on a .227 hitting percentage to lead the Illini (10-3, 2-0 B1G), while also adding five blocks and five service aces. For the second-straight match, graduate student Megan Cooney registered a double-double – the ninth of her career – with 16 kills on a season-high .536 attack clip, 12 digs and five blocks, while junior Kennedy Collins joined the duo with 16 kills of her own with only two errors on 22 swings for a .636 hitting percentage and four blocks.
Redshirt-junior Diana Brown paced the Illini attack with a season-high 52 assists as she directed UI to a .336 team hitting percentage, while adding nine digs.
Defensively, the Illini outblocked the Wildcats (5-8, 0-2 B1G), 13.0 to 8.0, with junior Kyla Swanson notching her second-straight nine-block outing. Senior Taylor Kuper led the Illini with 13 digs as the home team held Northwestern to a .184 team attack clip.
After the Wildcats jumped out to a fast 8-3 advantage in the opening stanza, the Illini responded with a 10-4 run to take a 13-12 lead. With the score tied up at 14-14, back-to-back kills from Cooney and Collins gave the home team the two-point edge at 16-14. The Illini would hold that advantage until a 5-1 Wildcat run gave the visitors a 22-20 lead. The two teams then traded points as a Cooney kill at 24-22 fought off one set point, before a Wildcat kill closed out the first, 25-23, in favor of the visitors.
The Illini quickly responded in the second as a Collins kill on a NU overpass gave the home team an 8-3 advantage as the Wildcats called timeout. Northwestern would pull within three at 9-6, but back-to-back Terry kills started a 4-1 mini run to push the Illini lead to 13-7. After back-to-back Wildcat points, the Illini put together another 4-1 scoring run to take a 17-10 edge. The Wildcats then took the next three of four points, before three-straight Illini points started a 5-1 run for the 23-14 advantage. Back-to-back NU points slowed the Illini only temporarily as kills from Terry and Cooney sandwiched between a Northwestern block closed out the 25-17 set two win.
A pair of Terry aces helped kickstart a 6-3 Illini lead in the third as UI held on to its edge until a 4-1 Wildcat run tied the score at 11-11. The two teams then went back and forth until the Illini broke a 14-14 tie with six-unanswered points on the Nunge serve to pull ahead at 20-14. After trading points over the next several points, the Illini – leading 23-17 – took the third with three-straight points as back-to-back Swanson and Cooney blocked finished off the 25-17 set win and take a 2-1 advantage in the match.
It was another quick start in the fourth for the Illini as the Terry serve propelled the home team to a 5-1 lead capped by a Swanson solo block. The Wildcats answered back to knot the score at 6-6 and from there it was a battle with nine ties over the next several rallies. After a Collins kill put the Illini ahead at 19-18, the Wildcats string together the next three points en route to a 7-2 run to end the fourth, 25-21, and force a decisive fifth set.
The Illini came out fired up in the fifth, taking an early advantage at 5-2 and continued to hold their lead as Cooney – who was dominant in the fifth, totaling 5.5 points on five kills and a block – and Swanson teamed up for a block to push the lead to 9-5. After a Northwestern timeout, the visitors closed with 9-7, but another Cooney kill combined with a NU hitting error stalled the rally. A Wildcat kill cut the visitor deficit to 11-8, but the Illini then scored four of the final five points as a Collins and Terry stuff sealed the 15-9 win in the fifth and the 3-2 match victory.
Illinois next heads back on the road to West Lafayette, Ind., for a 6 p.m. CT match at Purdue on Friday (Oct. 1).
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