No. 25 WSU Volleyball Falls to No. 3 Wisconsin in NCAA Second Round

Friday, December 2

Madison, Wis.

4:00 PM

Washington State University

22-12

No. 3 Wisconsin

27-4

Washington State

Wisconsin

No. 25 WSU Volleyball Falls to No. 3 Wisconsin in NCAA Second Round

December 02, 2016 | Volleyball

Box Score WSIC-WSU Box Score Recap: Second Round WSU vs. Wisconsin NCAA Photo Gallery

By: Washington State Athletic Communications

MADISON, Wis. -- The No. 25 Washington State University volleyball team (22-12) fell in three sets to No. 3 Wisconsin (27-4) Friday night in the NCAA Second Round at the Wisconsin Field House in Madison. The Badgers won with set scores of 25-18, 25-18, and 25-17.

WSU ended the year with 22 wins, the most wins in 14 seasons and tied for fifth-best all-time in WSU history with the 1988 team. This was the 11th NCAA Championship tournament appearance for the Cougars and WSU Head Coach Jen Greeny has been involved in seven of those appearances: three as a player, three as an assistant coach and in 2016 as a head coach.

Friday night, before 5,898 fans, Kyra Holt led the Cougars with 12 kills and had six digs. Taylor Mims added five kills and one block. Claire Martin and Hailey Bethune each had three blocks. Alexis Dirige and Tani Stephens had nine digs each. Haley MacDonald and Nicole Rigoni combined for 25 assists. Dirige had the lone Cougar ace of the match.

Wisconsin was led by Lauryn Gillis' 12 kills and four blocks, and Kelli Bates' 10 digs. Haleigh Nelson led the match with seven blocks while Lauren Carlini had five blocks and 33 assists.

The Badgers hit .248 for the match and held WSU to a .067 hitting percentage. Wisconsin out-hit WSU 42 to 29 in kills, and out-dug the Cougs 43 to 37. The most stinging statistic was the Cougars' six team blocks to the Badgers' 13 blocks on the night.

"Wisconsin is a good team but we just kind of fell off on the blocking part and we just needed to be more disciplined," Holt said after the match.

"First of all Wisconsin is extremely good," WSU Head Coach Greeny said. "I'm proud of this (WSU) team for how far we've come into the second round, but Wisconsin is a fabulous team. We definitely couldn't get our offense going tonight against Wisconsin's great defense. I'm excited for Wisconsin to go on and I'm very proud of our team and what we've accomplished this year."

When asked if it was surprising to get out blocked, Greeny said, "Yeah, a little bit. I think they're such a good offensive team and Carlini does a fantastic job of distributing the ball. We had a couple of times that we were maybe in the right place, just we weren't pressed over and things like that. But I thought they did a really fantastic job of blocking, better than anything we've seen on film or anything like that. That could've been a credit to their serving as it was pretty tough so we got pretty predictable and that always helps your blocking game."

On if Wisconsin reminds her of a team in the Pac-12, Greeny said, "No one really in particular, but a little Stanford, a little Washington, a little UCLA all mixed in there. I think Wisconsin is a fabulous team. I'll just say right now that they are going to win it all. I can't bet because I'm in the NCAA, so I won't bet, but they could definitely do it. And we'll be routing for them. Tell (Wisconsin head coach) Kelly (Sheffield), he'll owe me."

Senior tri-captain Tani Stephens on paving the way for future WSU NCAA appearances said, "I definitely think so. None of us on this team have ever been to the NCAA tournament before and now we have a group of 11 girls who have all seen it now. I think that's definitely going to help them going into the spring as well as next season and just having seen that before is always helpful."