The Illinois volleyball team showed its potential this weekend when it claimed the BYU/Nike Invitational title in Provo, Utah.

The No. 8 Illini defeated BYU on Friday and St. Mary’s and UC Santa Barbara on Saturday while only dropping one set the whole weekend. Head coach Kevin Hambly said the Illini played well but have room for improvement.

“We were a little up and down, showed some good things, showed some not so good things,” Hambly said. “It was kind of what you’d expect on a first weekend, we were a little sloppy at times but definitely have a lot of potential.”

Hambly was particularly pleased with Illinois’ efforts on the defensive side. The Illini averaged 3.1 blocks per set in the three games. Middle blocker Anna Dorn led Illinois with 15 blocks on the weekend.

Senior Rachel Feldman, who started as libero against UCSB, a move Hambly said was made to try different lineups, thought the middle blockers were the standout players.

“Blocking maybe started out a little shaky but near the end we were outblocking our opponents,” Feldman said of the Illini, who held a 31-17.5 blocking advantage. “Especially this weekend, our opponents played a faster offense than maybe we’re used to in our practice, so to see them work hard on a faster offense is really good.”

It wasn’t just the blocking that stood out, though, as outside hitter Michelle Bartsch was named the tournament MVP while fellow outside hitter Colleen Ward earned all-tournament accolades.

Both seniors had 40 kills in the three matches, while Bartsch had 13 blocks.

“Those kind of awards don’t really mean much, I mean I couldn’t have done it without anyone else,” Bartsch said. “I think Annie (Luhrsen) actually did an awesome job spreading around the sets and our middles have been more involved than the past couple years, which has been really good for our offense.”

Luhrsen, who made her Illinois debut as setter, averaged 11.8 assists per set, including 50 assists against UCSB.

Two freshmen, Liz McMahon and Morganne Criswell, also made their debut as Illini this weekend.

Hambly said he would have liked to play Criswell a little more and plans to in the future.

“McMahon played the whole match against St. Mary’s … she was a little shaky,” Hambly said. “It will just take her sometime to develop … Overall I think they did fine, what I expected.”

Illinois lost its only set of the weekend in the UCSB match, which Hambly attributed to poor decision making.

“If you look at the stats we had nine errors, nine hitting errors and we got blocked twice,” Hambly said. “That’s what happened, you can’t give a team seven points and get blocked twice.”

Going forward, the Illini have their first home match against Tennessee, which means the annual Stuff Huff event.

“We’ll be going after it pretty hard in practice (this week),” Feldman said. “It’s really nice to know that we’re going to have all of our fan support this coming weekend.”