Sept. 29, 2006
EVANSTON, IL – In front of hundreds of screaming Girl Scouts, the University of Iowa volleyball team was swept by the Northwestern Wildcats in Welch-Ryan Arena Friday night. Iowa (11-4, 0-3 in the Big Ten) fell by scores of 30-18, 30-20 and 30-25.
A replay of tonight’s game will be broadcast on Comcast SportsNet Saturday at 3 p.m.
“That was probably the most uninspired performance by a Hawkeye team I have seen,” Iowa Head Coach Cindy Fredrick said. “Northwestern dominated us in every aspect. I can’t really pinpoint one thing that went wrong. It was not a good match for us.”
In game one, thing remained close until Northwestern went on a torrid run, scoring 13-of-15 points to take a commanding 24-11 lead. Iowa fought back behind the serving of Melanie Meister and took six-consecutive points, cutting the lead to 24-17. The Wildcats had another run in them, however, and closed the game by taking six of the last seven points.
In game two, Iowa kept things close to until the closing moments when Northwestern scored eight of the final 10 points to take a 30-20 win.
Iowa came out of the break fired up, and looked like it was ready to take the third game. The Hawkeyes led until a pair of errors gave Northwestern its first lead at 21-20. Iowa was never able to re-gain the lead, and the Wildcats took the match with a 30-25 win.
Jen Barcus was Iowa’s leading hitter with 10 kills. She also added three blocks.
Iowa returns to action tomorrow with a 7 p.m. game at Illinois. Live audio of the game from former Hawkeye Barb (Willis) Randall will be available in the Hawkeye All-Access section of hawkeyesports.com.
MATCH SUMMARYIOWA 18 20 25Northwestern 30 30 30