The No. 6 University of Minnesota volleyball team earned a 3-1 win over No. 17 Illinois Wednesday in Champaign, Illinois.  With the win, the Golden Gophers improve to 11-2 overall and 5-0 in Big Ten play.

Outsides Alexis Hart and Adanna Rollins had 14 and 12 kills, while Stephanie Samedy had 10. Samedy and Rollins also accomplished a double-double with 14 and 11 digs, respectively. Taylor Morgan, Regan Pittman and Samedy all had seven blocks. CC McGraw had 15 digs, while Bayley McMenimen had a double-double 37 assists and 15 digs.

As a team, Minnesota held a season-best 16 blocks. Minnesota had 50 kills and 67 digs to Illinois’ 61 kills and 75 digs.

Notables

• Minnesota’s 16 blocks beat out its previous best of 15, set against Indiana to start the conference season. Minnesota has now had double-digit blocks in five matches this season.

• McMenimen collected her first collegiate kill in tonight’s match during the first set. 

Quotable

Rollins on the Gophers on entering the final set: “I think it was just handle the next point. We were just getting caught up in the last few points and our service errors and we weren’t thinking ahead so just flushing it and moving on is what we said in the huddle. We were just going to start over and it’s a new set.”

How they won the set

First set: Minnesota hit .351 to Illinois’ .079 to take it, 25-18. Rollins added six kills in the first alone, while Samedy followed with four. Minnesota committed just three errors in the set to the Illini’s eight.

Second set: Minnesota used seven blocks in the second set and escaped an Illinois 10-2 run to win the second set, 29-27. Leading 24-17, Illinois went on a 10-2 run to take the lead at 25-24. The two teams traded points through 27 before the Gophers solidified back-to-back blocks from Rollins/Morgan and then Samedy/Morgan for the second set win.

Third set: Illinois hit .519 and went on a 10-0 run to take the third set, 25-12. The Illini opened the set with an 8-3 lead and went on the 10-0 run at the 12-8 mark to solidify the set win.

Fourth set: Minnesota finished off the Illini with a 25-23 set win. The Gophers added another five blocks in the set for the win.