McMahon stands tall for Illini Volleyball

Liz+McMahon+spikes+the+ball+during+the+Illini+Classic+last+week.

Liz McMahon spikes the ball during the Illini Classic last week.

Editor’s note: The Daily Illini sports desk sits down Sunday nights and decides which Illinois athlete or coach is our Illini of the Week. Athletes and coaches are evaluated by individual performance and contribution to team success.

“It’s time to execute,” senior opposite side hitter Liz McMahon thought to herself as she slid into position and watched North Carolina’s serve soared over the net.

With the score between Illinois and North Carolina tied at 19 in the third set, McMahon knew as she rose in the air that putting away the point for the Illini would be big. As she jumped, her 6-foot-6 frame rising above the net, McMahon extended her right arm upwards in the air before slamming it into the ball, which sailed over the net and bounced off the right arm of a sprawling Tar Heel in the middle of the court before hitting the floor.

McMahon turned to her teammates, an enormous ear-to-ear smile on her face, and with her right arm punched the air in front of her in celebration.

The No. 9 Illinois volleyball team had taken a 20-19 lead, one that it wouldn’t relinquish on the way to a sweep of then No. 20 North Carolina and a 3-0 start to the year.

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McMahon put away two more kills in the next three points on the way to 24 kills, 10 blocks and a .426 hitting percentage over the weekend, a performance worthy of both the Illini Classic MVP and the Big Ten Player of the Week honors.

“It was a good start to the year,” McMahon said. “I thought the whole team played so well, so it was easy for me to play well too because they helped me out a lot.”

Although the awards were nice, the only thing that mattered to McMahon was that the Illini were able to come out of the weekend without having dropped a set.

“I wasn’t expecting it or anything,” McMahon said of the recognition. “It was cool. It’s the first week, though. It’s more important that we got three wins.”

For the Illini, those three wins were due in large part to McMahon’s play. McMahon was a force on the block all weekend and contributed six or more kills in each of Illinois’ games.

Head coach Kevin Hambly praised McMahon’s decision-making which he said helped her succeed on the weekend.

“I thought that she played really well, honestly,” Hambly said. “I thought that she was a very efficient attacker and she eliminated errors that she was making in the past.

“She’s making better decisions on balls that aren’t there and I also think Lex did a better job of setting her so she could get in rhythm a little more and take some big cuts.”

Although Hambly praised junior setter Alexis Viliunas’ setting to McMahon on the weekend, Viliunas praised McMahon’s ability to adjust.

“I’ve set her better before, but she was just able to adjust to what I was giving her,” Viliunas said. “She’s one of our hot hitters, obviously. She just knows how to put the ball down.”

McMahon got going early on in the weekend. She excelled against Long Beach State on Friday night.

Against the 49ers, McMahon was efficient, finishing the night with 10 kills on 17 attempts. McMahon also added five blocks in the match. McMahon’s kills seemed to come at opportune moments as she helped give the Illini a 17-16 lead in the first set with a block, brought the Illini to within one at 20-19 with a kill and had back-to-back kills to open the third set and help to put away the match for the Illini.

As the weekend progressed McMahon continued to excel. In Saturday morning’s matchup against Southern Illinois, she contributed eight kills and a block.

McMahon attributed some of her success to the speed of the new 6-2 system the Illini are running this year.

“We just got in a rhythm,” McMahon said. “The faster tempo really helped open things up for me. It was the first time we got to use that against another team.

In the final match of the weekend against North Carolina, McMahon came through in the clutch.

Although she only finished with six kills and four blocks McMahon left her impact on the game by putting away three kills in four points to give the Illini their third three-set victory.

With this being her senior year, McMahon has been thinking about what she wants to do post-graduation. She said she hopes to play professional volleyball, but for now she’s happy playing for the Illini and “making sure the whole team is moving in the right direction.”

Moving forward this season the Illini will look to McMahon more in big game situations as she showed time and again over the weekend that she’s able to execute in them.

“In bigger games and closer games Liz will be getting the ball a lot more because she can put the ball down when we need her to,” Viliunas said. “And in those tough situations she likes to be able to put the ball down.”

Nicholas can be reached at [email protected] and @IlliniSportsGuy.