Five days after USC swept them in the same building, Rutgers spent Thursday night getting a little better every set against Wisconsin. They hit minus-.043 in the first, .121 in the second and .231 in the third, which is exactly the right direction and still never produced a set.
Wisconsin won 25-17, 25-16, 26-24 at Jersey Mike’s Arena, their 19th win in 19 meetings with Rutgers.
Wisconsin hit .379 with 43 kills and 10 attack errors on 87 swings. Rutgers hit .126 with 28 kills and 16 errors on 95. The
Badgers out-dug Rutgers 41-29, out-blocked them 8-7 and sided out at 66.1 percent to Rutgers’ 50.0. The serving line was the one place Rutgers won, eight aces to six, with nine service errors to Wisconsin’s 10.
In the third, it was nearly enough. Rutgers led 24-23.
It was the only set point they had all night.
Fuerbringer Serves Out the First Two & Rutgers Gives Back Set Point in the Third
The first set was tied five times and Rutgers never led. Karis Willow scored Rutgers’ first two points on kills off Lily Bolen sets, then went to the line trailing 5-3 and aced Grace Egan twice in a row to tie it at 5-5. Her next serve went out.
Jenna DeLaMater’s serving turn got Rutgers level at 8-8 on two Egan attack errors, the second stuffed by Malia Romes and Mira McCool, and the set was tied for the last time at 9-9 before Grace Lopez killed for 10-9.
Then Charlie Fuerbringer went back to serve.
Wisconsin scored five straight with her at the line, two of them aces, and led 15-9 at the media timeout. A Bolen service error at 15-11 started a second six-point run on Egan’s serve, and Rutgers hit minus-.043 in the set with four kills against five attack errors. Willow aced Lopez at 24-17 and served the next ball out to end it.
The second was the one Rutgers actually led. Skylar George tied it at 1-1, Willow and Natalie Robinson stuffed Lynney Tarnow for a 2-1 lead, Kenzie Dyrstad aced Egan for 4-2 and Kaila Kalama-Bajet aced Egan again for 7-5. Romes’ kill off a Brooke Baldwin set made it 8-6.
It came apart in three rallies. McCool was called for a ball handling error, Egan stuffed McCool solo, and Kristen Simon aced Kalama-Bajet for a 9-8 Wisconsin lead. Rutgers never led again. Wisconsin hit .462 in the set with one attack error, and Fuerbringer took the serve at 21-16 and kept it for the last four points, acing Kalama-Bajet twice, before Lopez’s kill off her set closed it 25-16.
Rutgers hit .231 in the third, their best set, and spent most of it ahead. Wisconsin led 7-4 before George killed off Baldwin and Romes went to the line, where George and Robinson stuffed Lopez, Egan hit out and Romes aced Egan for an 8-7 lead, four straight points and Rutgers’ first lead of the set. Robinson and Willow killed on back-to-back Bolen serves, Willow added two more, and Romes’ kill off Baldwin made it 15-11 at the media timeout.
Wisconsin scored the next three and Rutgers took timeout up 15-14. Romes answered out of it, Jaela Auguste tied it, and Natalie Wardlow served Wisconsin to their first lead since 7-6 behind back-to-back stuffs, Egan and Tarnow on Romes, then Tarnow and Fuerbringer on George.
George tied it at 17, Romes aced the next ball, and Robinson and McCool stuffed Egan for a 19-17 Rutgers lead that forced a Wisconsin timeout. The teams sided out to 22-21 Rutgers until Isabelle Hoppe came off the bench to serve. Halle Thompson stuffed Willow solo to tie it, and Hoppe missed her next serve. Auguste tied it again at 23, Anna Bardaro served it away too, and Rutgers had set point at 24-23 with Avery Jesewitz serving.
Jesewitz missed hers.
Fuerbringer killed on the next rally for match point, Rutgers took their second timeout of the set, and George’s attack error ended it 26-24. Seven ties, four lead changes, five Wisconsin service errors, and Wisconsin won it anyway.
Stats Breakdown
Willow led everyone in Scarlet with nine kills and 13.5 points, tied with Lopez for the match high, plus three aces and three block assists. She also had six attack errors on 26 swings for .115 and three service errors.
George led the match in attempts again with 33 and turned them into seven kills and six errors, .030, three of the errors on Wisconsin blocks. Romes was the efficient one, six kills on 14 swings for .286 with two aces and two block assists. Robinson hit .250 with three kills, all in the third, and five block assists, and Jesewitz had two kills on 10 swings without an error. Bolen and Baldwin split the setting 11 apiece, and Kenzie Dyrstad dug 16, the most on either side.
Lopez gave Wisconsin 11 kills on .429 hitting with 11 digs, and also missed five serves. Auguste had 10 kills on 13 swings without an error, .769, and Tarnow eight on 12, .583, with five block assists. Fuerbringer had 34 of Wisconsin’s 40 assists and four aces. The one Badger Rutgers solved was Egan, seven kills and five errors on 20 swings for .100, plus five reception errors.
What Didn’t Work (and One Thing That Did)
The first two sets, first and most obviously.
Rutgers hit .054 across them to Wisconsin’s .388, with 14 kills combined, the same number they had in the third alone. Willow was the pattern in one player again, three kills and three errors in the first, two and two in the second, four kills against one error in the third.
Serve receive, in one spot. Every Wisconsin ace with a receiver attached landed on Kalama-Bajet, all three in the second set. George, the passer opponents usually hunt, was not charged with a single reception error, which is progress of a kind.
The finish.
Wisconsin missed two serves to hand Rutgers set point, and Rutgers lost the last three points on a service error, a Fuerbringer kill and an attack error. Set points against Wisconsin do not come around often for this program, and this one was gone in three rallies, ouch.
The one thing that did work was the serve. Rutgers out-aced Wisconsin 8-6, put five on Egan, and built both third-set leads at the service line. Malia Romes, the freshman middle from Kalida, Ohio, who graduated high school early to bank a semester of coursework before Big Ten travel started, served five Rutgers points in the third, two of them aces, and both of her turns at the line put Rutgers in front.
Rutgers is 12-15 and 3-12 in the Big Ten and turns right around to host Maryland tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the College Avenue Gym, before heading to Penn State on Tuesday, where Willow will see the program she transferred from. The third set says Rutgers can play with a team like Wisconsin for 25 points, the first two say they cannot yet do it for 75, and the rest of the season is about how soon the third set becomes the first one.
