Northwestern University Athletics
No. 6 Wisconsin 3, Northwestern 0 - Match Notebook
10/1/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
By Eric Clark
While Northwestern dropped its second match of the 2014 season, coach Keylor Chan found a handful of positives to take into the Wildcats' upcoming match against Minnesota on Sunday.
"Our freshmen were really good, and I thought (Katie) Dutchman played a great game," he said. "Wisconsin is very good, and they played some exceptional volleyball tonight."
Northwestern rallied from a 23-16 deficit in the final set, eventually drawing the score to 23-24 before falling on a kill via Wisconsin's Kelli Bates. In the last set, however, freshman Symone Abbott tallied five of the Cat's last eight kills and threatened to extend the match numerous times.
"That showed that we can beat a team like Wisconsin when we play our best," Abbott said. "If we just pass and run our system, our hitters can score against blockers that played in the national championship last year."
Redshirt senior Katie Dutchman, who tallied nine kills and two aces in the match, said the team's true potential was evident in the final set.
"We know that we can beat Wisconsin," she said. "We showed it at the end of the match, we showed it in the first set. We showed we can play with them in the last five points, and we just have to play like that all the time."
Chan said the team knows what it needs to work on in order to beat a team like the Badgers.
"We know we need to work on servicing and passing," he said. "That's been a shortcoming for us all year. It's something we work on, and we need to continue that trend. When we can pass the ball, we can play.
The Wildcats played in front of a crowd of 1,104 fans in Welsh Ryan Arena on Wednesday, the biggest audience thus far in 2014. Dutchman said the atmosphere in the building help fuel the Wildcats in their attempt to stretch the match.
"We had a great crowd tonight," said Dutchman. "As long as we have people cheering, that's all we need."
