Wisconsin volleyball has season-best hitting day in NCAA opening round sweep of Jackson State

MADISON – The members of the Wisconsin volleyball team are human and like any stars of the show they can be subject to opening night nerves.

Badgers coach Kelly Sheffield chalked up portions of the team’s sweep of Jackson State in the first-round of the NCAA Tournament Thursday night to those jitters as well as well as the challenge of figuring out an unfamiliar opponent that plays a style the team doesn’t see.

Ultimately, however, the Badgers had too much firepower to be denied. Six players hit over .300 in a 25-18, 25-9, 25-18 victory over the Tigers in front of a sellout crowd of 7,229.

“We were really excited tonight and when you get on the court there’s a lot energy that’s just not going anywhere, so it did make us a little jittery in the first set," sophomore Carter Booth said. "But now that we’ve gotten into it we’re going to start getting into more of a groove. We know how to channel that energy in a better way.”

Wisconsin’s next opportunity comes Friday night. The Badgers (27-3) will face Miami in the second round at 7 p.m. at the Field House. The Hurricanes, who were swept by Wisconsin at the Field House Sept. 8, beat Northern Iowa, 3-1, Thursday.

The team Miami will face is coming off its best hitting performance of the season. Wisconsin finished with a season-high .488 hitting percentage.

Sarah Franklin, Temi Thomas-Ailara led Badgers in kills

Senior Sarah Franklin, who was named the Big Ten player of the year earlier in the day, led the charge with 12 kills and a .524 hitting percentage. Temi Thomas-Ailara, a graduate student, had 10 kills and hit .500 in her first postseason appearance. Junior Anna Smrek (eight kills, .412) and senior Devyn Robinson (four, .571) also took advantage of their opportunities.

Middle blockers Booth and Caroline Crawford each recorded six kills. Booth had a team-high eight blocks.

“We’re not so keyed in on one player,” Robinson said. “We have such a wide variety of people who can put the ball away. You’ve got Temi stepping up. You’ve got Anna stepping up. You’ve got CC. We’re all driving for the ball so I think that is what makes us special.”

Badgers defense gets eight blocks in second set

Wisconsin needed a run in the second half of the first set and an early spurt in the third to begin pulling away from the Tigers at those points in the match.

Sophomore Gulce Guctekin and Crawford were the servers of record in a 9-3 run that gave UW a 20-13 edge in the first set. In the final set, Wisconsin briefly trailed for the only time in the match, however, a 3-0 run that included kills by Thomas-Ailara and Crawford and an ace by junior Julia Orzol gave the Badgers a 6-5 lead. UW never trailed again, slowly increasing the lead to as many as seven on a couple of occasions.

The second set was fueled by eight blocks. That defense along with Wisconsin’s .571 hitting percentage made it the team’s best set of the night, something to build on in what the Badgers hope is a long postseason run.

“Our captain MJ (Hammill) said before the game if you’re not feeling butterflies, you’re not alive,” senior Devyn Robinson said. “It’s a normal feeling. First round, you’ve got to get into it, got to get the feel going … Sometimes those vibes are a little shaky, but you start steadying as the match went on.”

More: UW's Sarah Franklin named Big Ten volleyball player of the year, Booth and Smrek first-team picks

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin volleyball opens NCAA Tournament with sweep of Jackson State