MADISON, Wis. – The No. 7 Badgers hit .465 in the 25-23, 25-12, 25-13 sweep over No. 3 Penn State on Saturday afternoon, to hand the Nittany Lions its first Big Ten loss of the season.
Wisconsin (18-5, 12-2 B1G) recorded just three errors en route to the .465 hitting percentage, with 50 kills on 101 attempts. Sarah Franklin and Anna Smrek both finished with 13 kills. Julia Orzol added 11 kills to round out double figure kills.
Penn State (23-2, 13-1) hit .117 (36 kills – 22 errors – 120 attempts) with outside Camryn Hannah leading the team with 10 kills.
The Badgers blanked Penn State’s block, as they outblocked PSU 11 to zero. CC Crawford and Smrek both tallied five blocks.
For the second match in a row, freshman Charlie Fuerbringer tallied a double-double, with 38 assists and 12 digs, a match-high.
After a back and forth start, it was all tied up at 7 apiece when the Badgers went on a 4-0 run with three kills from Franklin to give UW an 11-7 lead. Penn State called a timeout to slow down the run. Out of the break they sided out, but Wisconsin extended its lead to 14-8 with back-to-back kills from Smrek. From there, the Nittany Lions got back on track with two aces in a row to force a UW timeout with the Badgers leading 15-12. It was a tight race to 25 points with a tie game at 22-all after Jess Mruzik aced UW. The Badgers scored two straight points to earn set point. Penn State held off one set point before Wisconsin closed it out to take set one 25-23.
It was all Wisconsin in the second set. The Badgers went on a 13-0 scoring run to give the team a 15-2 lead. Within that run, Julia Orzol tallied four kills, Crawford grabbed two kills and two blocks and Smrek recorded back-to-back kills. The Nittany Lions scored just 10 more points as the Badgers rolled to a 25-12 set two victory.
UW picked up right where they left off in set three. Penn State held a 2-1 lead, but after that Wisconsin never trailed. It was a 4-0 run fueled by a solo block and a kill from Devyn Robinson and two kills from Franklin that pushed Wisconsin ahead 11-4. Everything was clicking for Wisconsin and the Nittany Lions could not slow them down. Wisconsin finished off the match on a three-point run to win it 25-13.
Straight from the court
Head Coach Kelly Sheffield
On the match overall:Â “That’s a damn good team that we played on the other side of the net. We pushed and got over the finish line in that first set. I thought our maturity was on display tonight and our grittiness. They were putting a ton of balls on Lola [Schumacher]. Both of our freshmen played really, really well tonight and that was probably Charlie’s [Fuerbringer] finest match.”
On what stood out:Â “What I really enjoyed is that for most of the match, when there was a service error, we came right back and stuck the pass and had a lot of first ball kills. When we got aced, I think they got us when we shanked back-to-back in the first, but from then on if we didn’t stick the pass, we were executing at a very high level out of system.”
Outside hitter Sarah Franklin:Â
On what went well:Â “It was so much fun. I think we were all kind of dominated by joy in this game and just really finding things that were clicking and just trying to find that over and over and over again and it was just really a blast to be out there.”
Middle blocker CC Crawford:Â
On the key to winning:Â “I think a big thing about us dominating today is just communication. Communicating before plays and after plays. I feel like we emphasize in the middle a lot with dropping our left hand. She really likes to take that undershot and just closing that seam and Anna does a great job of setting up the block so it makes my job easy.
Opposite Anna Smrek
On the atmosphere: “We had a big emphasis on looking towards each other and I feel like when we do that and everything kind of flows. That’s when the fun just becomes insane, and then of course, the energy from the fans in the Field House as well, that just adds to it.”
Notes to know
- Wisconsin held Penn State to it’s lowest hitting percentage yet this season at .117 (36 kills – 22 errors – 120 attempts).
- For the 13th time this season, Wisconsin had double-figure block totals. Wisconsin outblocked Penn State, 11.0-0.0.
- Wisconsin has outblocked its opponent for the 20th time this season.
- For the second night in a row, freshman setter Charlie Fuerbringer tallied a double-double. Fuerbringer had 32 assists and 12 digs. Against the Nittany Lions, Fuerbringer totaled 38 assists and 12 digs.
- The last time the Badgers swept Penn State was back on September 30, 2022 at the Field House. Wisconsin won 25-20, 25-16, 31-29. In total, this marks the fifth time in program history where Wisconsin swept Penn State.
- Today’s match marked the first time this season where Wisconsin didn’t allow an opponent block.
- Wisconsin hit. 465 (50 kills – 3 errors – 101 attacks), the second-best three set hitting percentage this season.
- Junior Carter Booth reached the 500 kill milestone against Penn State. Entering today’s match, Booth needed just two kills to reach the milestone.
- Freshman Lola Schumacher tallied 10, just four digs away from 300 digs this season. Schumacher is just 26 digs away from entering the top five in freshman digs record. Kristen Roman (1985) is No. 5 with 322, while Jocelyn Wack who sits at the top of the list, recorded 567 in 2004 for the Badgers.
Up next
The Badgers will make the trip out to California next week to take on No. 20 USC on Thursday night and UCLA on Saturday night.
