One advantage to the Illini’s blowout of Southern Illinois-Edwardsville was it allowed head coach Don Hardin to play team members who usually don’t see a lot of time on the volleyball court.

Backup libero Catherine Culligan, who entered the match in the third set for only her fifth match of the season, was one of these players.

“The real important thing there is to develop some players and get some depth,” Hardin said. “What if something happens to Ashley (Edinger)? We have to see how Catherine is going to respond.”

And how did Hardin think the freshman defensive specialist performed?

“She did great, she didn’t miss a beat, so I think it just established more confidence in the fact that if anything did ever happen to Ashley and we have a move to make, it feels good,” he said.

In-game practice

Tuesday against Illinois State, the Illini had 27 errors and hit only .169. This was52 points below their season average of .221.

Friday was a stark contrast, as Illinois hit .306 with just 15 errors.

Senior setter Lizzie Bazzetta said the Illini were working on establishing a connection between the setters and the middle and outside hitters throughout the game.

“You can work on them in practice, but game situations, working on them in transition is different,” she said. “I think we definitely improved on that throughout the game, working on middle and right side connection.”

Switch hitters?

Rather than playing in her normal spot on the right side, freshman hitter Michelle Bartsch was on the left in a blowout against Gardner-Webb on September 14. Typically, the left outside hitter receives more attacks.

But in Friday’s thrashing of SIUE, Bartsch stayed put on the right side.

Hardin said he didn’t experiment with Bartsch’s position because Kayani Turner, who has had a lingering injury throughout the season, would have been forced to stay in the game.

“Right now, Kayani is doing better and better and better, and we want to keep it that way,” Hardin said.

“We talked about (leaving her in to move Bartsch) on the bench as coaches, and … we’d rather make a mistake in being conservative than leaving her out there and figuring out we shouldn’t have.”

Illini bandwagon boarding for takeoff

Huff Hall hosted a crowd of 1,402 on Friday, significantly more than the number of fans that have shown up in home matches since Stuff Huff on Aug. 29.

“I love it when we have a lot of fans and when we have the band here,” sophomore hitter Laura DeBruler said.

“It gets our team pumped up and ready to go.”

Hardin gave the fans a little something extra when he came over to give them a pep talk before the game.

“I sounded like an airline pilot saying ‘I know you have choices to make on your Friday night,'” he said.

“This means so much to us, it’s just awesome.”