Challenging Big Ten slate begins this weekend

Illinois made it through nonconference play — almost exclusively away from its home venue at Huff Hall in Champaign — with an 8-2 record. The road trips continue

this weekend, with the Illini playing at Oregon on Friday night and at Washington on Saturday night. Beat writer Scott Richey has the lowdown on the Illini:

Ability to bounce backIllinois opened the season with six straight wins. Not all of them were easy — Iowa State and Wake Forest both took it to five sets — but those wins got the season off to the type of solid start the Illini needed. How Illinois responded the last two weekends after dropping its first match at both the Hyatt Place Invitational (to a ranked Dayton team) and the Lippy Invitational (to rival Missouri) was also important. Wins followed in both instances.

“We did a great job of just leaning on each other and understanding that one loss is not going to define who we are,” Illinois outside hitter Averie Hernandez said. “Being undefeated for so long was great for the team, but losing to opponents that are good teams and proved themselves as well is not a bad thing. Understanding how to bounce back from that is good going into Big Ten play because everybody is good at volleyball. There’s big matches every week. Understanding a loss is a loss, but you’ve got to move on. I feel like we did a good job of resetting the next day starting from point one.”

Effective and efficientRaina Terry leading Illinois with 4.22 kills per set through 10 matches is far from a surprise. In fact, it was basically a lock. Terry has led the Illini in kills every season she’s played in Champaign, and the veteran 6-foot-3 outside hitter also ranks fourth in the Big Ten so far this season behind only Wisconsin’s Sarah Franklin, Ohio State’s Emily Londot and Purdue’s Eva Hudson. Terry’s production is actually slightly down from a year ago, but her efficiency has improved dramatically. In large part to other teams actually having to be cognizant of other Illini hitters like Hernandez, Laynie Smith and Ashlyn Philpot before Big Ten play begins Friday night at Oregon for Illinois.

“It is nice having some other people that are weapons and can put the ball away when it’s needed,” Terry said. “It allows my efficiency to go up, which is great. A lot of the issues we ran into last year was my efficiency wasn’t great because I was taking so many attempts. Now it’s getting better, and that’s because we have so many other weapons.”

Still room to improve

Chris Tamas was mostly pleased with what his team accomplished in the nonconference portion of it schedule. The Illinois coach liked how his team ground out three five-set wins out of four matches that went the distance — especially given how much that could happen in an expanded Big Ten that has even more high-level teams. Not having to scramble to find a lineup like a year ago was also a positive even if some tweaks were made to the rotation. But Tamas still identified several areas that could still be improved.

“We spent a lot of time on serve-and-pass and defense, but that can always get better,” Tamas said. “Of course, that helps your offensive production, as well. I liked our offensive distribution. We’ve still got to get the middles involved more. We’ve got to keep the balls off the floor a little bit better. We’re keeping them off more, but the quality of contact has to be a little bit better. We’ve had some really nice serve-and-pass games. We’ve had some that weren’t so good. We’ve just got to become a little more consistent.”