On the weekend of Sept. 21-22 the Spartan volleyball team suffered two losses on the road to No. 6 Wisconsin and Northwestern.
But when the Spartans host the pair this weekend at Jenison Field House, the Badgers and the Wildcats might not recognize their opponents in green and white.
The renewed Spartans (15-6, 8-6 Big Ten) will try and erase memories of previous losses when they take on Northwestern (8-13, 4-10) tonight at 8 and conference-leading Wisconsin (19-3, 13-1) at 8 p.m. Saturday.
Senior outside hitter Erin Hartley said the team has greatly changed since the early losses.
“We were watching videotape yesterday of our first games with them, and it’s clear we’re a completely different team,” she said. “We’re confident with each other and we’ve really meshed as a team - I think we’re ready to play them now.”
In the first battle between the Spartans and the Wildcats, Northwestern capitalized on unforced MSU errors to defeat them 3-0.
“It’s almost better for us to have lost to them the first time, because now we have to beat them,” Hartley said. “We want to make up for what happened before.”
The Wildcats lead offensively and defensively by middle blocker Erika Lange. She leads the team with 2.86 kills and 1.53 blocks a game.
But the Spartans have won four straight matches in the second-half of the conference schedule.
“These past few games we’ve made very few errors and that shows we’ve worked hard on that area of the game,” Hartley said.
Spartan head coach Chuck Erbe said the Spartans have to win if they want to keep pushing for a NCAA Tournament bid.
“Our first loss at Northwestern was a bad loss,” he said. “We weren’t collectively ready for them on the road, so now we have to even the ledger here.”
And as soon as the Spartans finish with the Wildcats, they’ll shift their minds to the Badgers.
“Wisconsin will be a tremendous challenge,” Erbe said. “It would be a huge win for us.”
If they plan on winning, the Spartans will have to contain middle blocker Sherisa Livingston and setter Lizzy Fitzgerald.
Livingston leads the Big Ten in conference matches with a .437 hitting percentage and is second with 5.13 kills an outing. Fitzgerald’s 13.15 assists a game is good enough for second in the conference.
Erbe said he is anxious to see how his team handles the powerful Badgers this time around.
“It’s really a kind of match where you get a measure of yourself, to see how much we’ve improved.”
Sophomore middle blocker Jenny Rood said better floor chemistry and stability led to the improvement from the first matches with the two teams
“We didn’t play very well that weekend,” she said. “If you were to compare how we’re playing now with how we did in the beginning of the Big Ten season, it would be like we’re two completely different teams.”
