Volleyball travels to East Lansing

With both teams coming off losses to their rivals, only one team will be able to bounce back on Saturday when the IU volleyball team travels to East Lansing, Mich., where it will play No. 10 Michigan State.

The Hoosiers are coming off of a 3-0 loss to Purdue in West Lafayette, making it 11 straight losses for IU. The Spartans are coming off of a 3-1 loss to Michigan.

“I’m so pumped (to get back out there),” IU senior libero and captain Caitlin Hansen said. “Honestly out there Tuesday night against Purdue was pretty disappointing, but I think we are hungrier than ever. We’ve been working really hard in the gym. I’m definitely pumped and ready to go, especially going to Michigan State because they are a great team.”

Michigan State (17-4, 6-3) is tied for third in the Big Ten, and is the only Big Ten team to have beaten Penn State. However, the Spartans have lost three straight matches.

“It’s the middle of the season, it’s the grind,” IU Coach Sherry Dunbar said. “They are a little up and down right now, and I think you see that in all the matches right now. Ranked teams getting beat, and this team not playing great, or an ok team making a big run. This conference is a lot like that every year and maybe this is the worst year for it, there’s going to be upsets every week. You’re going to have losses.”

Michigan State is led by senior Lauren Wicinski who has 313 kills and is 12th in the nation in kills per set with a .454 average. Junior Kori Moster leads the Spartans in digs with 319, and senior Kristen Kelsay leads the team in assists with 493.

“The good thing about Michigan State and why they have been so successful is that they don’t have a of weak links,” Dunbar said. “Other teams are really dominated by their outside hitters, and you look at Michigan State and they have very good left sides, very good middles, very good right sides, and they have probably one of the best liberos in the conference. They are just a very balanced team.”

IU is led by junior middle blocker Morgan Leach who has 202 kills. Sophomore middle blocker Awele Nwaeze has 177 kills, sophomore outside hitter Amelia Anderson has 165 and senior outside hitter Jordan Haverly has 156 kills.

Hansen leads the Hoosiers in digs with 267, with Haverly adding 145.

Sophomore setter Katie Gallagher leads the Hoosiers in assists with 381, but is out right now with a concussion. She is replaced by freshman setter Megan Tallman who has 365 assists.

“We have to worry about what we do on our side of the court,” Anderson said. “(We have to) work on minimizing our errors.”

This is the last match of a four-match road trip for the Hoosiers, who are looking to snap their losing streak that has lasted since their match against Duke in late September.

“We both just lost big rivalry matches, and I think they might be more discouraged,” Hansen said. “This might be the most opportune time to get them while they’re down.”

Follow reporter Andrew Vailliencourt on Twitter @AndrewVcourt.