PITTSBURGH – The fourth-ranked Wisconsin volleyball team fell in the NCAA National Championship to third-seeded Stanford on Saturday night at PPG Paints Arena, losing in three sets 25-16, 25-17, 25-20..The Badgers end their season 27-7 while winning their sixth Big Ten Championship with an 18-2 record.
– Stanford held Wisconsin to a season-low .152 (31 kills – 14 errors – 112 attempts) hitting percentage while the Cardinal hit .358 (50-12-106).
– Stanford outblocked the Badgers 7-3 and also finished with a 57-39 advantage in digs.
– Juniors Molly Haggerty and Dana Rettke were named to the NCAA Championship All-Tournament team.
– Wisconsin falls to 0-3 in national championship matches.
B.Badgers coach Kelly Sheffield after the match: Hats off to an unbelievableStanford team. I mean, there hasn’t been anybodythat’s done that to us this year. An unbelievable seniorclass that just 1, 3, or 4, they’ll go down as one of thegreat classes in the history of our sport. And KathrynPlummer might be the best non-All-American in thehistory of any sport. That was an unbelievableperformance.We got them out of system a lot in serving.
I thought the serving numbers that we put up were really good. Imean, they were really struggling with it. And it didn’tmatter. We haven’t had too many teams that havebeaten us in our transition game, and they were able to do that.
But I’m proud of our team and I’m proud of the playershere to my right and the ones back here in the lockerroom. There wasn’t any quit. There wasn’t any quit out there. And that’s been their character all season long,the journey they’ve traveled.We just ran up against a team that is unbelievable. And it’s a little bit humbling, but it’s a credit to them.
