Illini volleyball has chance to extend streak against Indiana, Purdue

Revenge is sweet.

Even sweeter than revenge, though, is a winning record. This weekend, the No. 25 Illini volleyball team (12-12, 8-6 Big Ten) will have a shot at both when they face conference bottom-feeder Indiana (9-16, 1-13 Big Ten) and rival No. 18 Purdue (16-9, 7-7 Big Ten) in front of a home crowd.

“I want Purdue,” senior defensive specialist Courtney Abrahamovich said. “I want Purdue really bad. … They are tough every year, and every year it’s just a battle. To get them at home, that would be pretty sweet.”

In the two teams’ first meeting, Purdue came from behind to beat Illinois 3-1 after dropping a highly contested first set that resulted in a 31-29 win for the Illini. Two of the next three sets were decided by less than three points.

“They are just a solid team all around, I would have to say,” Abrahamovich said of Purdue. “They are always one of our biggest competitors in the Big Ten, I would say. Maybe it’s because they’re so close to us, they’re like an hour and a half away — we just like to beat Purdue. It’s fun to beat Purdue.”

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The Illini, who are coming off three consecutive wins against Iowa, Michigan and Michigan State, could not ask for a better pair of matches this weekend. The Hoosiers have dropped 15 of their last 16 games. Last time Illinois faced Indiana, the Illini swept the match. Head coach Kevin Hambly said the Hoosiers should still be accounted for, though.

“They’re good, they’re very good,” Hambly said. “Everyone in our conference is very good. They showed up and beat Michigan State when Michigan State was hot. They gave us trouble — we were lucky. Two of the sets could have went another direction and who knows what happens if that happened at their place.

“They have good athletes, they have good talent, it’s just the league is tough. If you slept a little bit on a match or don’t pass as well as you should then you’re going to lose. … We’re not even worried about Purdue yet. We’re worried about Indiana.”

Hambly described Indiana as team that runs a quick-tempo offense that’s complemented by good hitters in junior Morgan Leach and senior Jordan Haverly. On the flipside, Hambly said Purdue is a balanced team all around, led by junior middle blocker KiKi Jones, who ranks as the fifth-most efficient hitter in the conference (.364 percentage) and the sixth-best blocker (1.18 per set).

In addition to the beneficial matchups this weekend, the Illini will get two more weeks with back-to-back matches over the weekend after coming off four consecutive weeks of a mid-week match coupled with a weekend match. Reverting back to this schedule gives Illinois a full week of practice with no interruptions.

“I love this,” Hambly said of the schedule change. “We have things that we’re slipping on that we want to get better at. … It’ll give us more time to focus on us versus just Indiana and Purdue.”

Blake can be reached at [email protected].