Big Ten Volleyball Week 1 Recap

With the Big Ten being the best conference for volleyball in the nation and the Badgers coincidentally being a part of that, we are going to do a weekly wrap up of all the important Big Ten action — along with the occasional recap of the big matches across the country.

Without further ado, the Bucky’s Fifth Quarter Big Ten Volleyball Roundup:

• An Ohio state university apparently decided they want to be good at volleyball too. The Buckeyes came back after dropping the first set to the then-No. 4 Washington Huskies to win 3-1 (23-25, 25-19, 25-22, 25-18) in a statement win for OSU. Emily Londot — the Freshman of the Year last year and a First-Team Big Ten player — had 19 kills and 18 digs to lead the way.

• The Minnesota Golden Gophers were in Madison for the Big Ten/Big 12 Challenge, playing Baylor on Friday night after the Wisconsin and TCU match. The Gophers dropped that one 3-1 to the Bears, especially crushing since they had a solid lead in the fourth set before dropping it to Baylor. Senior Stephanie Samedy had 21 kills for the Gophers in that one, but she was the only offensive player really working. Minnesota did bounce back to beat TCU the next day, but the Gophers face No. 14 Oregon and No. 21 Stanford this weekend. Could be a rough early start.
• While Nebraska’s football team got off to a bad start last weekend, their volleyball team certainly didn’t. The No. 5 Huskers went two for two with wins over Colgate and Kansas State. That match against the Wildcats was especially big for Nebraska, as they dropped the third set big and had to rally back to win the fourth set to close out the match. The stacked Huskers have three matches this weekend in Lincoln.
• The No. 8 Boilermakers rolled this weekend, winning their opening two matches against Loyola Marymount 3-1 and Kansas in straight sets. All-American Grace Cleveland had nine kills and four blocks against the Jayhawks.

• Penn State was down in Orlando for a non-conference tournament and came home with a 2-1 record. The No. 12 Nittany Lions opened their season with a loss to No. 24 Georgia Tech before ending their weekend with back to back sweeps over St. John’s and UCF.
• Maryland, Illinois and Indiana all went 3-0 on the weekend, while Michigan went 2-0 and, as you’ll see in a later post, jumped into the top-25. Michigan State and Rutgers each went 2-1 while Northwestern went 1-1 and Iowa was the only Big Ten team not to record a win, starting off 0-2.