Nov. 3, 2001
EVANSTON, Ill. - Despite an increased level of play over Friday night's performance, Northwestern's volleyball team lost their sixth straight game, 3-0 (30-20, 33-31, 30-23), to No. 25 Illinois Saturday night in Welsh-Ryan Arena.
Illinois (16-6, 9-5) got off to a fast start and took Game One easily, but Northwestern (8-12, 4-10) came back to take a Game Two lead of 16-11. Illinois kept putting the pressure on, and NU began making attack errors on plays that earlier been made for kills. Match point wavered between the teams until a block by Lydia Gard and Shadia Haddad put the game away for the Illini.
Despite the intensity of Game Two, the 'Cats rallied from a six-point deficit in Game Three to take a 20-19 lead. They could not hold on, however, and Illinois went on a 11-3 run to end the game and the match.
The Illini were led by Gard, who posted 16 kills and hit .609. As a team Illinois hit .425 with nine errors for the match, compared to .221 and 25 errors for NU.
For the 'Cats, junior Cassie McKnight (San Marcos, Calif./San Marcos) had another stellar night behind the service line with four aces.
The Wildcats were led in kills by Kelli Meyer (Madison, Wis./Edgewood), who had a match-high 17, and Sarah Ballog (Coto de Caza, Calif./Santa Margarita), who had 13 and hit at a .478 clip. Freshman Drew Robertson(Long Beach, Calif./Long Beach Poly) had another double-double, her seventh of the season, this time with 32 assists and 10 digs.
What was set up to be the "Battle of the Big Ten Blockers" ended in a dead tie, with each team tallying six blocks. Northwestern had a banner blocking night against Indiana Friday while Illinois did not fare as well against Wisconsin, so the stage is set for NU to recover the league's team blocking lead.
Northwestern is on the road next weekend, traveling to Michigan and Michigan State.