Grace Egan

John Steppy, let's talk volleyball a little bit.

Some injury news update, kind of weird stuff going on with Grace Egan.

The Badgers had a fine week.

They took a set from Texas before falling.

So they are still number six in the country as we get a little bit closer to the meat and potatoes of the schedule.

So just in general, where you feel like they're at, this feels kind of right where they're supposed to be.

Although the Grace Egan stuff is a little strange and interesting.

So explain what's going on with them.

So only two for Charlton, um, and then you see only two for Goodwin, who's another inside midfielder.

Um, Grace Egan made her way back into the midfield, only had one, and Ebony Marinoff has 11.

Every other midfielder, for whatever reason, just could not get themselves a tackle on the weekend.

Um, I do wonder if, if it was a midfield that felt, it felt ill-equipped to deal with the speed and the stoppage structure of Geelong and didn't know whether or not it was going to do something to stop Georgie Prespakis.

It felt like a coach, and it is a first-year coach, that didn't know what the strategy was to stop someone who could just dominate clearance the way that Georgie can, and that's what led to pretty poor scoring from all of their midfielders, to be honest.

Goodwin scores a 46.

Grace Egan scores an 88, which is a great game, but that's with nine marks and only 20% CBAs.

Um, Kelly only has a 42 as well.

It's Steinhafels' 35 service aces this season for Wisconsin so far.

Grace Egan, who led the team last year, still atop the leaderboard with nine so far this year, and she hasn't played in a few matches.

Audrey Flanagan, the freshman, with eight.

Kristen Simon with seven.

It was Isabel Hoppe picking up her third ace of the season.

Wisconsin now with 36 service aces as a team this season.

Grace Egan, who hasn't played in a few matches now, still on top of the leaderboard with nine.

Audrey Flanagan with eight.

They're coming off a four-set win over Stanford as well on Wednesday night.

Remember, Stanford is a team that Wisconsin looked pretty good at early on and then the cardinal just took over and looked like the better team for the final three sets and they beat the badgers in four so there is a common opponent uh between the two in in the stanford cardinal um but for wisconsin i think it's just getting better and they're gonna have to get better without grace egan uh jayla august is not in the starting lineup i don't think she'll play tonight i think this will be her fifth straight match for egan her second straight match but we make it to see desolese champion so there's uh there's a positive there

So, yeah, it's been a minute since Wisconsin's been out on the volleyball court.

Over a week since their last game against Auburn back at the Fieldhouse.

Third of four against SEC opponents consecutively here.

Without Grace Egan, without Jayla Auguste, what do we hope to learn about the Badgers in this matchup tonight? And how do you think that this lineup is coming together for Coach Kelly Sheffield as he tinkers and matches different rotations together here as we've seen throughout the non-conference?

I don't think the lineup's coming together because they haven't really had a consistent lineup yet.

What did you ask? What's at stake? Yeah, what are we going to learn about Wisconsin tonight? I mean, I think we will learn whether or not they're getting better against elite teams.

More half forward than push up, yeah

... sheltered by a really impressive, strong midfield core, right? Conti and McKenzie, and I know Grace Egan wasn't in favor, but she was definitely in an in and under player and getting it to the outside where Greaves could use her strength to whiz by.

Now I think she's being asked to play this in and under role, uh, and it's just...

Like, it's her trying to feed it out to Conti, and that's...

I'm just reading here, apparently, um, [tsking] uh, it was apparently said that-

KLWT

... yeah, Grace Egan playing

The acronym is playing.

Um, you know, this team has so many new pieces.

When you look, you know, at the roster as a whole, it's really just Charley Furbringer and Grace Egan that are back, which is pretty crazy to think about, and Grace Egan has kind of been in and out of the lineup anyway.

So you only have Furbringer consistently out there, who was a team that helped you do a Final Four last season.

All the other pieces are new, whether they're transfers coming in or really young sophomores, um, or freshmen that are playing college volleyball for the first time.

Three last night.

Grace Egan, who led the team last year, leads the team here entering match six.

She has nine service aces.

Audrey Flanagan, the freshman, with seven.

at the same time tonight.

Wisconsin victorious, 25-23 in set one, 25-17 set two, 25-20 in the third.

One of the notable things for tonight's match, no Grace Egan and no Jayla August for Wisconsin volleyball tonight.

Those are two of the top players that you expected here.

Because after those three ranked teams, they have to still play number 17 Florida, number 12 Texas A&M, number nine Texas, and Marquette, who almost beat Texas, before they end up playing in the Big Ten Conference.

Now, Jayla Gust, who absolutely dominated against Louisville, was missing in their last two games, as was Grace Egan in their match against Pitt.

Meanwhile, Lenny Tarno and Audrey Flanagan I think are shaping up to be great recruits for this team.

They are really stepping up as freshmen.

Got a nice goal as well.

So our goals went to Grace Egan, kick two straight, and then we had singles to Gould, Bowne, Noffey, Kelly, Douglas, Newman, Kelly, Two Kellys.

The third Kelly got her behind, so she couldn't join in the Kelly

goal fest.