For Illinois volleyball coach Kevin Hambly, the way the Illini played in Saturday’s intrasquad scrimmage was not what he expected. 

In place of the annual alumni game, the Illini split the squad into Orange and Blue teams as they did during the spring season and scrimmaged each other to begin the year. The Illini played sloppy throughout the match and both teams took some time to get into a rhythm.

“I was just surprised to see a group that has played so much together seem tentative to start off with,” Hambly said. “They had a hard time firing up to play and they seemed disinterested at times. It’s an odd thing to play when you’re playing against each other. It’s like practice in front of people.”

The Orange and Blue played four sets with the Orange team taking the first and second set 25-19 before the Blue team bounced back to take the final two 25-21 and 25-18, respectively.

Sophomore outside hitter Katie Roustio and junior outside hitter Jocelyn Birks led the Illini with 14 and 13 kills, respectively, and freshman defensive specialist Brandi Donnelly led the Illini with 25 digs.

But the scrimmage was more about shaking off the rust than it was about stats.

“Obviously we love to have the fans there and it’s good for us to play in front of a crowd, but really it’s just for us to get that experience in and for us to shake off the nerves before we do play another team,” Birks said.

Senior outside hitter Morganne Criswell thought that after the initial shock of playing in front of a crowd wore off the team was able to get going.

“We opened up more and we got more excited and that brings adrenaline for each player and I think that helps the team,” Criswell said.

Both illini teams combined to commit 25 service errors over the four sets, a fact that Hambly thought might be troubling moving forward. 

“It was a really high error game and we’re going to be in trouble if we play that way,” Hambly said. 

Hambly thought that at points in the scrimmage the Illini looked good, but added that the team needs to clean up every aspect of its game before the season begins Friday. 

“Everyone showed glimpses of things that were good,” Hambly said. “It wasn’t like everything we did was awful but it wasn’t the level we’re going to need to play to be ready to compete with Long Beach State.”

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