While the MSU football team battles the Fighting Illini at home this weekend, the MSU volleyball team (6-7 overall, 1-4 Big Ten) will have a showdown of its own 8 p.m. Saturday at No. 24 Illinois.
On Wednesday, MSU fell 1-3 to the Wolverines in front of a season record-size home crowd in Ann Arbor.
While senior outside hitter Kim Schram indicated the rowdiness of the crowd threw the Spartans off, at least in game one against Michigan, MSU should be ready for more of the same this weekend.
"Illinois is a really tough place to play," Schram said.
"The fans are on the court, screaming at you.
"Especially, our younger players will have to adapt in that environment and just stay confident."
In recent games there has been a larger freshmen presence on the court with setter Maggie Griffin, middle Megan Schoen, defensive specialists Miken Trogdon and Tracy Bellwood and outside hitters Jessica Hohl and Katie Johnson contributing to points.
Hohl had 11 kills during Wednesday's match, while Griffin had 38 assists and nine digs. Trogdon had four service aces for the night and Tracy Bellwood was libero from the beginning of the second game of the match and had a career high of 18 digs.
Head coach Chuck Erbe said he has been impressed by the performance of the freshmen this season.
"They just need to keep doing what they are doing," he said.
However, MSU struggles in its individual performances and that is the individual players' responsibility, Erbe said, referring to the amount of serving, hitting and receiving errors during the Purdue loss this past weekend.
The Spartans' mental game is struggling, he said. During the game against Michigan the team had 10 service errors.
"The serve in volleyball is just like the free throw," Erbe said. "It's all you."
MSU is led by Schram who is just short of 1,500 career kills, which would make her the sixth in Spartans history to do so.
Erin Hartley was the last MSU player to reach the record with 1,508. This season, Schram has 204 kills and junior middle Brooke Langston follows with 103 kills with 2.41 per game.
Junior libero Marley Bellwood has 151 digs on the season followed by Griffin, who has 106 digs.
The Fighting Illini are led by Rachel VanMeter who averages 4.2 kills per game with 185 kills on the season. Rasa Virsilaite, who has 159 kills averaging 3.7 kills per game with a .287 hitting average and 70 digs this year.
Setter Erin Virtue has 484 assists and libero Lauren Harks has 122 digs on the season.
To beat the Fighting Illini, Schram said, the team just has to put the loss in the past - something the Spartans have been doing a lot recently.
"We still have two days of practice ahead of us," she said.
