Two straight in-conference losses left Wisconsin volleyball in a precarious situation, along with their hopes of retaining the Big Ten title. No. 7 Illinois then came to the UW Field House on Wednesday night, and the Badgers seemed poised to take their knockout blow.
The Badgers’ demise, as head coach Kelly Sheffield put it, had been greatly exaggerated though.
Through the graces of some foreign aid, by way of redshirt junior Romana Kriskova, Wisconsin staved off attack after attack from the Fighting Illini and took the match by a score of three sets to one.
Kriskova, a native of Bratislava, Slovakia, the country’s capital city, has seen limited action in her time at Wisconsin thus far.