The IU volleyball team will play its final home match of the season Wednesday night when rival Purdue comes to Bloomington.
The Hoosiers, 16-13 overall, 5-11 Big Ten, are hoping to avenge their loss earlier in the season when it traveled to West Lafayette, Indiana, and got swept in by the then-No. 10 Boilermakers, now 16-11, 6-10.
“I think it’s a great to have Purdue in our last home match,” Dunbar-Kruzan said. “Both of us are in needing-to-win situations, and so I think it’s going to be a battle. It’s a rivalry already, but I think it’s going to be whoever executes the best.”
Dunbar-Kruzan said she will be testing out some new rotations to combat Purdue’s offense.
She said she believes her team’s familiarity with the Boilermakers will aid the Hoosiers Wednesday night.
“It’s important that we come in here and execute how we want to play with our body language, our personality and how we can play at a high level,” Dunbar-Kruzan said. “What the game is going to come down to is a serve-and-pass battle. They are going to serve away from our middles and are going to keep pressure on us with their serving like Nebraska did. We need to do a better job and limit their offense. Whoever serves and passes better is going to win.”
Dunbar-Kruzan said she doesn’t see any true weaknesses in Purdue’s play, but she said the Boilermakers’ ball control is not up to the same level that it has been at in the past.
The 10th-year head coach said her team’s serving game is going to have to be strong enough to make Purdue prove it can step up and stay in system.
Freshman defensive specialist Meaghan Koors said she is excited to play instate rival Purdue in University Gym for the first time and hopes the Hoosier faithful will pack the arena.
“I think the crowd got to us a lot when we visited Purdue,” Koors said. “I think playing here will help, especially with our home-court advantage. We’ve grown closer as a team since then, which has helped us play better together than we did last time. If we play our hardest we will come out with a win. I expect to win.”
Senior outside hitter Mallory Waggoner said IU’s knowledge of Purdue and its confidence against them must be its focus leading up to and during the match.
“We have to stay in the gym and keep pushing to get that win over our rival,” Waggoner said.
Wednesday night’s match will be a white-out and IU volleyball’s fourth annual “Holidays with the Hoosiers” night, as the program will be collecting toys that will be donated to a local charity.
