IU vs. Purdue. That alone is as big as it gets for both schools, no matter the sport, but for volleyball, there is an added prize.
In 1981, Purdue seniors Donna Hardesty and Anne McMenamy wanted to find an object that represented the rivalry between the two schools on the court, similar to the Old Oaken Bucket for football.
In the late 19th century, the Monon Railroad was built in Indiana. On Hardesty and McMenamy’s journey, they chose a spike from the railroad and named it the Monon Spike.
The problem is that the Monon Spike has been sitting in West Lafayette, Indiana, for nine consecutive years. The Hoosiers will look to bring it back to Bloomington when they square off with the Boilermakers at 7 p.m. tonight.
That task, however, will require more than just showing up and taking it. IU will look to use its serving and blocking defense to take back the Monon Spike.
The No. 13 Boilermakers have the best hitting percentage in the Big Ten Conference at .341.
Purdue senior outside hitter Danielle Cuttino is one of the best outside hitters in the nation, and it does not matter who she is playing, IU Coach Sherry Dunbar-Kruzan said.
“Cuttino is going to do her thing because that’s how good she is,” Dunbar-Kruzan said. “Our job is to contain the rest of them.”
That was the blueprint for Ohio State when the Buckeyes played Purdue, and it worked. The Buckeyes beat the Boilermakers, 3-1. Cuttino had 25 kills and hit .333, but the rest of the Purdue team was limited. It is a strategy IU will try to follow.
Another important strategy for IU is to come out ready to play. The Hoosiers have won the opening set in 10 of their 11 wins this season.
IU has lost the first set in its last four matches and has only won one of them.
“I think the start of that set is really important,” Dunbar-Kruzan said. “We’ve been really getting down in that first set. We need to be really aggressive at the start and play it out.”
Senior outside hitter Jessica Leish said that the slow conference start has given the team a wakeup call.
The team understands that the Big Ten is competitive and that there will be plenty of sets and points that do not go its way, but it is more about how the Hoosiers handle that adversity.
“When that happens, it doesn’t mean that we should just come off everything we’ve been working on since January,” Leish said. “I think that’s when we need to trust even more in our work and in each other and just continue to give more rather than back down.”
Last year, Purdue beat IU, 3-0, at home without a problem, but IU will look to best the Boilermakers this time around and pick up its first conference win.
“There’s a different feeling in the air, and I think Purdue feels it and so do we,” Dunbar-Kruzan said. “That’s what you love about rivalries. The matchups between us used to be really even for the first couple of years, and we want to get back to that.”
