MADISON – Last month the Wisconsin volleyball team travelled to Evanston, Illinois, for a match with Northwestern and came home with a straight set win the Badgers captured by winning each set by at least nine points.

The rematch wasn’t nearly as easy even though UW scored a sweep in front of 7,229 Sunday afternoon at the UW Field House.

The Badgers, who are ranked No. 9 by the American Volleyball Coaches Association, posted a 25-13, 25-23, 25-20 victory. UW recorded its fourth .400 hitting match of the season and recorded double-digit blocks for the third straight match.

The Badgers also held Northwestern (3-11, 1-5 Big Ten) to .211 hitting, which on the surface is good but not nearly as good as the first meeting when they held the Wildcats to a 0.67 hitting percentage.

Northwestern hit .324 during the final two sets.

“I’m not so sure we were as strong defensively as we like to pride ourselves on there towards the end,” UW coach Kelly Sheffield said. “But I’m certainly happy to get a 3-0 sweep and moving on to the next.”

Senior Sarah Franklin (14 kills, .355 hitting percentage) led the team in kills. The Badgers had four players take more than 10 swings and all hit better than .350. The others were senior Anna Smrek (13 kills, .500), senior Julia Orzol (10 kills, .526) and senior Devyn Robinson (seven kills, .455).

At the net, senior Caroline Crawford had eight blocks, one off her season high, and the Badgers finished with 12.

The victory was Wisconsin’s fifth straight and raised its record to 11-4 overall and 5-1 in the Big Ten.

Germantown graduate Lily Wagner, a sophomore whose mother, Amy Lee, played for the Badgers from 1994-97, shared Northwestern’s team lead of 10 kllls with Alexa Rousseau.

Graduate student Sophia Summers added seven kills and a .778 hitting percentage for the Wildcats but didn’t get a kill during the final set.

“I think our blockers didn’t do a great job of reading the situation and what our opponent was trying to do,” Sheffield said. “And I’m not sure we were always working hard enough to get good really good swings, terminating swings out of system for the first part of the match.

“I didn’t think our work-rate rate was particularly high, but there my be an element of nitpicking when you sweep a Big Ten opponent and hit north of .400.”

The match turned in the second set when Northwestern couldn’t put away UW after taking a 19-16 lead. Freshman Charlie Fuerbringer had a service run of five straight points to help the Badgers turn a 19-16 deficit into a 22-19 lead. Smrek had two kills during that run and five during the final seven points of the period.

“I just wanted to keep going,” Smrek said. “When we can get on a run and everything is working and in system we’ve just got to get the job done and just go up, give confidence to each other and take big rips.”

That stretch set the tone for the final set, which though close UW never trailed.

Robinson had five kills during that portion of the match when UW put on a clinic of shot making. Franklin, Orzol and Smrek also driled difficult shots that led to kills as the Badgers completed their fifth straight sweep.

Up next: No. 11 Oregon Friday night at the Field House.

The Detroit Tigers are a team that many people are going to be keeping a close eye on during the upcoming offseason.

Given how strongly they finished the 2024 campaign, they should be looking to upgrade specific aspects of their roster. While their finish to the season was impressive, there are a few clear-cut needs.

Many people will look to the pitching staff as needing reinforcements. For the last few weeks, the only starting pitcher who consistently took the ball as more than an opener was likely Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal.

Injuries depleted the rotation after Jack Flaherty was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers ahead of the deadline. Better health would certainly help, but some reinforcements will be needed.

Alas, there are at least pieces the team can rely on and plug into the pitching staff. In the opinion of Bradford Doolittle of ESPN, the biggest need for the Tigers is adding a home run hitter to their lineup.

“A thumper. When you look at the Tigers’ positional array as it stood at the end of the season, it’s talented but especially really young at every spot. It’s an athletic group that can be augmented with midtier veterans to fill roster gaps and can grow together. Their top position prospect, outfielder Max Clark, has yet to hit the upper levels of the minors, so there’s more talent coming. Because Detroit has all of those young athletes to blanket the field, and young players tend to need less rest in the form of DH days, the Tigers could accommodate a pure, mashing DH more than most contending teams,” the MLB expert wrote.

The Detroit lineup provided a lot of positives down the stretch. When it was needed, the team came through with timely hitting.

But, the postseason showed just how badly this team needs a home run hitter. In seven playoff games, they scored only 21 runs.

Had it not been for some elite pitching, which showed cracks down the stretch against the Cleveland Guardians, they likely wouldn’t have made it as far as they did.

Who could the Tigers target to address that need? Doolittle offered a solution; Pete Alonso of the New York Mets.

“The Tigers also have a lot of cash to spend if they so choose, given their lack of committed money, and in theory a player like Pete Alonso embodies the kind of hitter we’re talking about. If that doesn’t work, it’s still a skill set the Tigers should pursue after finishing next-to-last in OBP and 22nd in slugging,” he wrote.

The slugging first baseman would be a huge addition to the Detroit lineup. While his numbers dropped off slightly in 2024 from previous seasons, he has still hit at least 34 home runs in every season of his career and is a four-time All-Star.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — A 47-year-old person was fatally shot at a youth flag football game Saturday in Milwaukee, according to the city council’s president.

Milwaukee Common Council President José Pérez said in a statement that a person was killed during a game in his district.

Milwaukee police confirmed a 47-year-old with a gunshot wound was transported to a local hospital around 1 p.m. and died. Officers arrested a 37-year-old in connection with the shooting but later said the person was no longer considered a suspect.

Police did not release further details or any potential motive for the attack.

“The circumstances leading up to the shooting are under investigation,” Milwaukee police said.

Milwaukee Public Schools said the district would provide resources to students in need of support when school starts Monday.

“Milwaukee we MUST do better for ourselves, our children, and neighbors for the future of our city,” Pérez said in a statement.

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