Louisville Volleyball Swept by Wisconsin

Coming off the exhilarating win over defending champ Texas A&M on Friday night, Louisville was no match for the honorary host Wisconsin on Saturday in Milwaukee. The Badgers swept the Cards (18-25, 20-25, 18-25) in front of a crowd of 7,618 at Fiserv Forum.

Coach Dan Meske’s No. 7 Cards were a step slow in almost all facets tonight and the No. 6 Badgers took full advantage.

“They outplayed us in pretty much every regard tonight. We did not respond as they applied pressure. All the credit to Wisconsin, they had a great gameplan, executed it very well and we unfortunately couldn’t get our footing tonight. First contact really hurt us. We got out served and passed the entire night.”

Offensively the Cards were led by Chloe Chicoine and Kalyssa Blackshear with 10 kills a piece. Chloe Meester added nine kills and Brooke Bultema pitched in six. Setter Nayellis Cabello had 26 assists and two kills.

Defensively, Payton Petersen paced The Ville with 16 digs, Chicoine added nine, Hannah Kelly had seven and Cabello with six.

Louisville fell behind 14-10 in the first set before Bultema tore off back-to-back kills on a slide and an overpass to cut it to 14-12. Wisconsin would quickly push that advantage to 20-13, and the Cards would ultimately fall 25-18.

Meske on the first set:

“They served great and we couldn’t get them out of system. We were not quite serving aggressive enough and we let them get into a groove. They were in system for the first twenty balls, it felt like their setter didn’t have to move and we were chasing them the rest of the way. We hit .375 in the first set and got smoked. We coughed up 19 kills to them.”

In the second set, Chicoine and Blackshear came out swinging and kept the Cards in it early, before Wisconsin rattled off four straight to go up 11-5. The Cards would rattle off three in a row mid-set behind a Bultema kill, Cabello kill and Bultema block to make it 17-14. From there it was pretty much all Badgers and they rolled 25-20.

The Cards would go down 15-9 at the media timeout in the third set and get no closer than three the rest of the way, falling 25-18.

Meske on where Louisville goes from here:

“We have an incredibly difficult schedule. We are going to take lessons from this, how to come out hotter and with more fire, especially after big wins. I learned we have a really gritty group of captains that I’m really excited about competing with this year.”

Louisville will return home to L&N Federal Credit Union arena for three straight before they travel to Nashville to face the No. 2 Texas Longhorns at Bridgestone Arena on Sunday, September 6. Next up is a Friday night “Blackout” match vs Indiana at 7 pm.

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