From left, junior outside hitter Mischelle Nelson, freshman outside hitter Becca Zlabis and sophomore libero Allyson Karaba watch the ball fly past Penn State middle hitter Arielle Wilson during Friday’s game at Jenison Field House. The Nittany Lions beat the Spartans 3-0.
—The deck was stacked against the MSU volleyball team in its 3-1 victory over Indiana on Saturday.
Getting swept in the last two games they played, the Spartans were facing Indiana, one of the hottest teams in the conference, a team that in the last two weeks had won four straight matches, including two wins over ranked opponents.
But after the first set of Saturday’s match, the Spartans dispelled any notion that they would be swept away by the hot Hoosiers.
MSU hit .440 in the opening set, a level they haven’t reached since Oct. 10 against Northwestern.
The teams traded points at the beginning of the set, but after the Spartans used two quick points to stretch the lead to 19-16, Indiana took a timeout. However, the effort to collect the team backfired as MSU went on a 6-2 rally to win the set 25-18.
The Spartans seemed to use that momentum early in the second set to stretch out to a huge 16-9 lead.
But errors would plague the team the entire night, as the Hoosiers were able to close in to tie the game at 22. The Spartans won the set 25-23, but recorded nine errors in the set, eight of which led to the 13-6 rally.
Errors again bit the Spartans in the third set, as three errors in the last four points gave Indiana its only set of the night 26-24.
In the fourth set, MSU cleaned up its error problem and jumped out to a big lead early 13-7. The team didn’t relinquish the lead for the rest of the set, using a 9-3 rally to close out the game.
“It felt really good,” junior middle blocker Vanessa King said. “We had a pretty good week of practice. Obviously we weren’t looking past Penn State, but Indiana was the one we really wanted to get. Losing to them last time gave us a little bit of fire for this game.”
Head coach Cathy George said she was happy with what she saw on Saturday.
“We did some things with our lineups and we got better matchups,” George said. “I think that our team came out and started to execute.”
As a team, the Spartans hit .288, the best match since Sept. 27 against Michigan.
“I think we’ve been trying to find out rhythm with our offense since the loss of (sophomore outside hitter Jenilee Rathje),” George said. “Trying to find out what we can do and who hits well, we tried some different lineups.
“I think it’s important that we utilize everybody’s best attributes. We really want to capitalize on those. And slowly but surely as we’re finding out more and more about these young players. We’re finding out what they do well.”
The win gives the Spartans a little momentum going into next weekend, as they look to extend their winning streak this weekend against No. 20 U-M and Ohio State on the road. MSU won both matches the last time the teams met.
“It puts us back on track and we have to keep going because we have big matches next week,” George said. “It’s very important for us to get the consistency of playing two great matches in a row, and we need to do that as we go into next week.”
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