Michigan State University
13-12, 6-8Big Ten
Wisconsin
22-2, 13-1Big Ten
No. 4 Badgers Down Spartans 3-0
11/9/2014 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
Box Score East Lansing, Michigan - - Michigan State lost a tough three-set battle with No. 4 Wisconsin at home on Sunday afternoon, falling 3-0 (23-25, 19-25, 22-25). The Spartans dropped their second straight, and fall to 13-12 on the season and 6-8 in Big Ten play; Wisconsin is 22-2, and leads the Big Ten with a 13-1 record.
Chloe Reinig led all players with 15 kills, hitting .419 (15-2-31), and adding three digs and an ace; Allyssah Fitterer had nine kills and a solo block, while senior Jazmine White had six kills and four blocks on the day. Sophomore Autumn Christenson had seven kills. For the Badgers, Ellen Chapman had 13 kills and four digs, while Kelli Bates chipped in 12 kills and six digs.
MSU hit .330 on the day, the first team this season to hit better than .300 against the Badgers in any match. However, the visitors hit .356, as the teams battled through 21 tie scores and nine lead changes over the three sets.
The opening set was a fairly tight affair - the fourth-ranked Badgers looked like they were trying to pull away with a run that gave them a 13-10 lead, but MSU battled back to knot it at 14-all with a 3-1 run . After a 3-0 run by the visitors on a Thomas kill, a block by Carlini and Thompson, and a Thomas ace forced MSU into a timeout trailing 19-16; out of the break, MSU went on a 7-2 run to tie the set at 21-21, fueled by the Spartans got a kill from Fitterer to stop the run and got back into it with three kills and three blocks. With the Badgers holding a one-point advantage at 23-22, Reinig hit a cross-court shot to once again knot the score, but Wisconsin got the opening-set win with a Kelli Bates kill, followed by a Nelson ace, to take the early advantage. MSU hit .344 (15-4-32) in the opening set, with three blocks, but had three service errors; Reinig (5) and Fitterer (4) led the Spartans in kills, while White had a hand in all three Spartan blocks. Overall, the opening frame featured 15 tie scores and five lead changes.
The Badgers opened up a 6-2 lead in the second set, and then pushed it to with a 12-8 lead, used a 6-1 run to build to its largest lead of the day at 18-9. Back-to-back kills by Garvelink and Fitterer stopped the Badger run, and while the Badgers held a seemingly insurmountable 22-13 lead, MSU fought to the end, scoring six of the next eight points, fueled by a pair of kills by Reinig, one each by White and Fitterer, and an ace by Hubbard. A kill by Chapman sealed the second set win for the visitors, 25-19, but the Spartans held much of the momentum as the teams went into the intermission. The Spartans continued to make few hitting errors, recording 14 kills against just three errors (.355), but had three more service aces - and across the court, the Badgers followed up a .303 hitting percentage in the opening set with a .429 (17-2-35) performance in the second frame.
Wisconsin opened up the third set with a 3-0 lead, but MSU got to work, going on a 10-4 run that allowed the Spartans to take their largest lead of the day at 10-7. The Spartans kept the pressure on, forcing the visitors to call a timeout at 14-10; MSU got a kill by Reinig out of the break to push its lead to five, but the Badgers got right back into it on back-to-back errors by MSU and then two kills by Ellen Chapman, trimming the lead to one point as MSU called timeout. Out of that break, Wisconsin scored that allowed the Badgers to regain the lead at 17-16, but MSU got a Fitterer kill to again knot the score at 17-17. The teams were tied at 19-19 and 20-10, but then Wisconsin pulled back ahead by two on a Bates termination and a Spartan error. After an MSU timeout, a White kill for the Spartans was answered by two for the Badgers (Thomas and Chapman), but White capped a long rally to briefly fend off match point. The UW senior Chapman finished it off for Wisconsin with a shot down the left line to secures a 25-22 set win and the 3-0 match victory.
The final three weeks of the Big Ten season features a mid-week and weekend match for each of the teams to finish out the regular season. MSU takes on Nebraska in Lincoln on Wednesday evening, then returns home to host Indiana on Saturday.
