The Illinois volleyball team, ranked seventh in the nation, swept road matches with Minnesota and Iowa by a combined score of six games to none. But the Illini started slowly Saturday night at Iowa City after the long bus ride from Minneapolis.
”We started playing the first game and a half like we had been cooped up in a bus for eight hours,” coach Mike Hebert said. ”But to the credit of this team, they didn`t let any of that bother them. They were disgusted by how they were playing. They gathered themselves together and by the end of the match they were playing Illinois volleyball.”
Illinois improved to 21-3 overall, 11-1 in the Big 10. The Illini have won 11 straight matches, including a school-record 33 straight games.
Dutch Olympian Kirsten Gleis led the victory over Minnesota with 18 kills and no errors. She hit .643.
Tina Rogers, meanwhile, had a total of 34 kills for the weekend. She also had two aces, leaving her three short of Mary Eggers` single-season school record of 50. And for the second week in a row, Rogers was named Big 10 player of the week.
The Illini are ranked first in the Mideast Region by the NCAA, which could lead to the home-court advantage in the NCAA tournament. On Wednesday they visit Northwestern, then travel to Madison, Wis., for a match Saturday with the Badgers. On Sunday they`ll meet Loyola in Chicago.
Hoops scrimmage: Illinois` basketball team will hold an open scrimmage at 10:30 a.m. Saturday in Assembly Hall.
Admission is free. The scrimmage will end in plenty of time for fans to make the Purdue-Illinois kickoff across the street at Memorial Stadium.
Approaching a record: ith three games to go in the regular season, Illini quarterback Jason Verduzco needs 356 yards to pass Tony Eason as the No. 2 passer in school history. The all-time leader is Jack Trudeau, whose 8,723 yards give him a 2,047-yard lead over Verduzco.
Also Monday, Verduzco was honored as Big 10 offensive player of the week after leading the Illini to a 13-12 comeback victory at Wisconsin. Verduzco ran for a 5-yard touchdown, then passed 22 yards to John Wright for the clincher with 1:35 left. Verduzco finished with 16 of 27 for 154 yards, including 112 in the second half, as he won the award for the second time this season.