Sarah Franklin had 13 kills to lead all players as UW cruised to its fourth straight sweep.
The No. 6 Wisconsin Badgers (13-2 Big Ten, 19-5 overall) took care of business in its first trip out West, sweeping 3-0 (25-18, 25-19, 25-12) the No. 23 USC Trojans (9-6, 17-8) in dominant fashion.
Senior outside hitter Sarah Franklin had a match-high 13 kills on .632 hitting as she continues to string very impressive matches together. The 6-foot-4 outside hitter was named Big Ten Player of the Week for her exploits last week and continued to impress for Wisconsin today.
In the opening set, the Trojans were able to take a 7-6 lead over Wisconsin before Franklin had two aces in a row as part of a 4-0 run that put UW up 13-10 and forced a Trojan timeout. Although Wisconsin’s block did not get a lot of terminal blocks, it impacted the USC offense early and forced some errors, including two in a row as part of a 4-0 run that pushed the UW lead to 17-12.
Senior middle blocker CC Crawford had a block on USC star Ally Batenhorst to push the lead up 19-13, helping Wisconsin go out of reach in the opening set. USC had kept it close to start, but strong serving from UW and errors doomed the Trojans.
Wisconsin jumped out to a big lead in the second frame as Franklin led the way to a 9-4 lead. At that point, the Badgers were hitting .750 on the set and were doing a really good job in the serve receive — something that stood out throughout the match. Franklin gets a lot of plaudits for her offense, obviously, but she was targeted a lot and passed really well from that spot.
The Trojans battled back in the second set and cut the lead to 15-14 before UW got some daylight from a kill from junior middle blocker Carter Booth gave the Badgers a 18-16 lead. Booth had nine kills while hitting .562 and tallied four blocks en route to another impressive night. Eventually, Wisconsin closed out the second set 25-19 while hitting .471 in that frame.
In the final set, the block finally was able to convert its touches into blocks that popped up in the stat sheet. Senior Anna Smrek and Booth combined on back-to-back blocks that helped UW sprint out to a 7-1 lead in the third. Smrek had another block to push the lead to 9-3 before a weird kill from senior Julia Orzoł helped UW take a 13-5 lead that forced USC’s last timeout. Orzoł then had back-to-back aces as the rout was on for Wisconsin to a dominant 25-12 third-set victory.
The Badgers did a good job of shutting down USC’s star outside hitter Batenhorst. The former Nebraska Cornhusker had a positive start and finished with eight kills, but she was held to a negative hitting percentage for the match. Additionally, Orzoł’s two aces came while targeting Batenhorst, who was then subbed out soon after, highlighting her struggles on the night.
Wisconsin ended up with nine total blocks, with six of those coming in the third and final set. The Trojans never got going on offense, hitting just .079 compared to Wisconsin’s .333.
Up next for Wisconsin is a visit to UCLA (6-9, 12-12) on Saturday night. That match is at 9:30 p.m. on Big Ten Network.