Madison, Wis. - Only three teams defeated the No. 6 Wisconsin Badgers all season.
And on Saturday night, the No. 20 Spartan volleyball team found itself trying to be the fourth - they had to defeat the Badgers (27-3) at Wisconsin Field House in front of 5,333 Badger faithful or be booted from the NCAA Tournament.
The Spartans (21-8) were unable to defy the odds, and last seasons NCAA runner-up Badgers proved to be too much, defeating them 3-0 for the third time this season.
We lost to a superior team with a great deal of tournament experience, Spartan head coach Chuck Erbe said. They were a better team tonight.
The Spartans defeated No. 25 Notre Dame 3-1 on Friday to advance to the second round.
On Saturday, the Spartans fell behind big in games one and two, trailing the Badgers 5-1 in game one and 11-2 in game two.
We got off to a difficult start, and we never got out of it, Erbe said.
Wisconsin downed the Spartans with scores of 30-21, 30-22 and 30-24.
Middle blocker and All-Big Ten first teamer Sherisa Livingston led all players with 15 kills and seven total blocks.
Outside hitters Jill Odenthal and Erin Byrd added nine kills and six kills, respectively, for the Badgers.
(We wanted to) control Wisconsins other hitters besides Sherisa (Livingston), because we knew Sherisa was going to get her kills, sophomore setter Nikki Colson said. And I dont think we did a good job of it.
In addition to dominating at the net, the Badgers utilized a strong serving night, which caused the Spartans passing troubles. Wisconsin totaled 12 aces on the night contrasted to the Spartans six.
To have 12 service aces in a three game match is great, Wisconsin head coach Pete Waite said. And not only were there those aces, there were a lot of tough serves that kept them out of their offense.
And early service errors caused the Spartan to let up a little with their aggressive serves and deflated their confidence in that aspect of the game, he said.
I just think they were very tentative, and they didnt have a lot of confidence in their serve tonight, Waite said.
But more importantly, the Badgers serving and tenacious defense disrupted the Spartans big hitters.
I think that pretty much says how we won, Wisconsin setter Lizzy Fitzgerald said. We passed great and fought hard. We scrambled, and we kept the ball off the floor, against a big hitting team.
The Badgers held the Spartans to a .112 hitting percentage in the match, their lowest-hitting night all season.
Also, the Spartans were unable to have one player with double-digit kills or one player with a hitting percentage over .300.
Junior outside hitter Kyla Smith led the Spartans with nine kills and senior outside hitter Erin Hartley added eight kills in the losing cause.
In her final match as a Spartan, Hartley led her team with 10 digs.
Versus the Irish, however, the Spartans overcame a case of the jitters to convincingly pound the Big East champions 25-30, 30-16, 30-20, 30-24.
I was nervous and usually I dont get nervous, Colson said. We are a good comeback team, and after game one, we talked about what we needed to do and the jitters went away.
And with the absence of jitters came the appearance of total confidence, which showed.
The Spartans got 16 kills from Hartley, 13 kills from freshman outside hitter Kim Schram, 12 kills from Smith and 10 kills from sophomore middle blocker Jenny Rood.
Junior middle blocker Angela Morley sent back 10 Irish attacks, and Hartley added seven total blocks as a result of the Spartans dominance at the net.
The tough net game coupled with spectacular defensive effort led by Colson, spelled trouble for the Irish. After slapping six game-one kills, middle blocker and Big East Player of the Year, Malinda Goralski, could only connect for two more kills.