Three days after its season opening road win, Illinois volleyball returned to Champaign for its first official home match of the year. The visiting Valparaiso entered the night with a record of 2-1, thanks to an appearance at the EIU Volleyball Invitational the previous weekend. Despite owning a bit more experience in the young season, Illinois made quick work of Valparaiso en route to a 3-0 victory. 

The very beginning of the first set was the roughest it got for the Illini all night, and even then they never trailed by more than two points. It took 13 serves for Illinois to take its first lead of the match, but it was not until the 10-10 mark when head coach Chris Tamas’ group really hit its stride. Five straight points for the Illini were met with a timeout from the opposing bench. 

Whatever was discussed in the Valparaiso huddle managed to momentarily stop the bleeding, but unfortunately the damage was done. Illinois’ lead gradually grew over the course of several favorable exchanges, to the point where its eventual set one victory was obvious. No instance highlighted Illinois’ dominance than its 20th point, where randomly flailing arms after a failed block still ended with a point to the home team.

Illinois sealed the deal with just one set-point serve, thanks to a preemptive block attempt from graduate blocker Kennedy Collins fooling Valparaiso into letting the deciding point unceremoniously drop onto their side of the net. 

It looked like Illinois would pull away much quicker in the second set, especially after back-to-back service aces from Raina Terry forced a Valparaiso timeout after just minutes. But this time around, the Beacons’ break from action paid off. A 5-1 run for Valparaiso briefly tied the game at 10-10, but once again the advances were short lived.

Well placed kills from junior hitter Kayla Burbage, an incredible save from graduate libero Vanessa Pan and powerful strikes from redshirt sophomore blocker Sarah Bingham summed to a 15-7 finish to the second set, with the cherry on top being a video review challenge from Tamas deciding the set point. 

Fully in control with a two set lead, Illinois showed no loss of urgency. The Illini had their best start of the night, opening on a 5-1 run that incurred yet another Valparaiso timeout. Once again, the timeout proved effective for the Beacons. They recovered incredibly quickly, bringing the score to 8-7 and staying within one or two points of the Illini for several serves. 

However, it quickly became apparent that Illinois was too much for Valparaiso and the set was blown open following the Beacons’ ninth point. The Illini brought in seven unanswered points to take a 17-9 lead and keep a comfortable amount of space between the Beacons for the remainder of the set. The match point was decided by a heavy-handed hit from Valparaiso that landed well beyond Illinois’ sidelines.

As a whole, Illinois dominated the stat sheet and only trailed Valparaiso in aces (3-2). Significant advantages were seen in kills (45-28), assists (41-27) and digs (44-34) but the most impressive disparity was in blocks (12-2). 

Terry led the squad in kills (13), aces (2) and blocks (5) while also having the second most digs (9). The only category where Terry was significantly outdone was assists, of which Brooke Mosher had 35 compared to Terry’s two. 

For the second game in a row Burbage had the second most kills on the team, with many coming at crucial junctions of the match and participating in huge Illinois scoring swings. The crowd loved Burbage’s performance and their support was felt on the court. 

“It’s been awesome,” Burbage said. “I think that people definitely ‘Stuff Huff.’ That’s one thing that stands out about Illinois that’s super special. Playing at NIU (Northern Illinois), we had a good crowd, I would say that the majority of people that were there were Illinois fans. We’re super excited to be here with our fans, getting into Big Ten and stuff like that, just being able to surround ourselves with Illinois fans.”

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