Box Score

MADISON, Wis. – With her second kill of the match, senior Kelli Bates joined the 1,000-career kill club, becoming just the sixth Badger in program history to record 1,000 career kills and 1,000 career digs.
 
Her milestone wasn't enough as the eighth-ranked Wisconsin volleyball team was upset by Ohio State, 14-25, 16-25, 25-21, 25-23, 15-13, on Friday night in the UW Field House.
 
Tionna Williams led all hitters with a career-high 19 kills while hitting .621 (19 kills – 1 error – 29 attempts). Three more Badgers collected double-digit kills, including Dana Rettke (13), Bates (12) and Madison Duello (10).
 
Wisconsin (15-7 overall, 6-7 Big Ten) hit .256 (68 - 24 – 172) for the match while Ohio State hit .249 (59-17-169).
 
The Cardinal and White recorded seven service aces to OSU's (13-11, 6-7) one. Rettke led the charge with three aces on the night.
 
The Badgers' back row outdug the Buckeyes 80-62 thanks to four players earning double-digit digs. Libero Tiffany Clark notched a match-high 24 digs with Bates and M.E. Dodge adding 15 apiece, and Lauryn Gillis saving 11 balls.
 
Ohio State outblocked Wisconsin 13-7, only the sixth opponent to outblock the Badgers this season. Williams had a team-high six stops for UW.
 

Notables

• Middle blocker Tionna Williams put down a career-high 19 kills.
• Senior Kelli Bates earned her fifth double-double of the season with 15 digs and 12 kills.
• Libero Tiffany Clark had 20-or-more digs for the fifth match this season with a match-high 24 saves.
• Setter Sydney Hilley notched 55 assists, one away from her career high.
• Freshman Riley Bell tied her career high of one ace, the third time this season she's earned an ace.

 

Kill club alert

Congratulations @kellibates04 on 1,000 kills for your career! pic.twitter.com/5KSry7x8CJ

— Wisconsin Volleyball (@BadgerVB) November 4, 2017

Quotable

"(It was) kind of two different matches, you had the first two sets and then you had the last three (sets) that were a heck of a battle. We lost three really close sets and the first two sets we thought we were playing at a pretty high level and then I thought we took our foot off the pedal coming out of the locker room defensively. I thought Ohio State did a great job at just staying gritty and fighting and giving themselves a chance and sneaking out of here with a good win."
-Head coach Kelly Sheffield
 
"It hurts when those are games that you need to win, and you knew Ohio State was going to be licking their chops at us this time. Last time they came here, we kicked them out of the (NCAA) tournament.
 
"It's not easy right now, and especially when we need to find a little more toughness within ourselves. How many five-setters are we going to go losing 13-15? That's frustrating, and you always think you can do more, but we just need to move on and we need to take away really specific things from this match. Like Kelly said, our defensive intensity dropped, and that is what this program is great at. When we suffer with that, then that's what takes advantage of us, just like Ohio State did tonight."
- Senior Kelli Bates
  

It was over when

After the Badgers dominated play in the first two sets, Ohio State came back in the third and fourth frames to tie the match at 2-2. In the fifth set the Badgers and the Buckeyes traded points for the majority of the set for a total of eight ties. The final tie of the set occurred at 13-13, before OSU's Ashley Wenz tallied a kill and teamed with Lauren Witte for the match-winning block.
 

Up next

The Badgers are back in action Saturday night, hosting Maryland at 7 p.m.