Illini sweep Maryland and Rutgers to open conference play

Illinois+Liz+McMahon+%2814%29+spikes+the+ball+during+the+game+against+Rutgers+at+George+Huff+Hall%2C+on+Saturday%2C+Sept.+27th.+The+Illini+won+3-0.

Illinois’ Liz McMahon (14) spikes the ball during the game against Rutgers at George Huff Hall, on Saturday, Sept. 27th. The Illini won 3-0.

Kevin Hambly doesn’t call timeouts at this point in the season.

Hambly, the head coach of the Illinois volleyball team, didn’t call a timeout against Maryland or Rutgers this weekend, the team’s first in Big Ten play. He wanted his players to figure it out on the floor.

“I let them work it out,” Hambly said after Friday’s match against Maryland. “They gotta figure out those runs. We’re going to run out of timeouts and they have to figure out how to change things themselves and so I wanted to give them that opportunity.”

Illinois (10-3, 2-0 Big Ten) took advantage of Hambly’s opportunity. After coming out flat against Maryland (7-6, 0-2) on Friday night, the team upped the energy against Rutgers (7-8, 0-2). The Illini swept both the Terrapins and the Scarlet Knights, but it was the energy level, not the results, that worried the Illini this weekend.

“It was good to see us come out and compete harder than we did last night,” senior outside hitter Liz McMahon said after the Rutgers match. “That was a good adjustment and then I thought offensively we had a strong match. We were pretty aggressive.”

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Illinois was aggressive from the start in both matches, building a 20-9 lead against Maryland and a 13-3 against Rutgers in the first set, but the Illini failed to sustain the momentum against the Terrapins.

Maryland committed 20 attack errors and seven service errors and couldn’t find a rhythm in the match until the third set. The Illini capitalized on the Terrapins mistakes but not to the extent that the team wanted to.

“We’re not particularly happy with the way that we won,” junior opposite side hitter Ali Stark said. “We didn’t really play our style of ball at all.

“We kinda just sat back and waited for them to make errors or come at us instead of just coming out and attacking right away and staying consistent with that throughout the entire match.”

Illinois beat Maryland by scores of 25-13, 25-21 and 25-17, and while the team hit efficiently and held the Terrapins to a .054 hitting percentage, the amount of energy the Illini brought left a lot to be desired.

Illinois’ energy and offensive efficiency improved against Rutgers, as the Illini recorded .434 hitting percentage against the Scarlet Knights.

Rutgers battled with Illinois throughout the match but the Illini made adjustments on the court en route to their second sweep of the weekend by the score of 25-15 in each of the three sets.

Illinois was spurred on by the play of McMahon and junior outside hitter Jocelynn Birks, who combined for six straight kills in the tightly contested third set against Rutgers.

“Liz and Joce (Jocelynn Birks) were doing great tonight,” junior setter Alexis Viliunas said. “They were both pretty hot, I would say, so I wasn’t going to go wrong either way.”

Birks led the team in kills on the weekend, tallying 15 and 10 digs against Maryland and adding another 12 kills and seven digs against Rutgers.

The Illini’s offensive attack was extremely balanced against the Scarlet Knights as the Illini had three players record double digit kills. McMahon finished with 13 kills and senior outside hitter Morganne Criswell added 10.

While the Illini were happy with the improvement in their energy level against Rutgers and their ability to adjust on the floor, Hambly said that the team still needs to work on bringing consistent energy, no matter how the other team plays, if they want to be great.

“We’ve come out with big leads early and just brought the fight,” Hambly said of the team’s play early on in matches. “It’s more about can we sustain that. However they react shouldn’t have an effect on that. When they react strong we’ve been able to sustain it but when they’ve backed off then we haven’t been able to sustain that level. Great teams sustain that level the whole time.”

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