Team confident for midweek match

The end is approaching for the women's volleyball team as they look toward their final two home matches of the season this week. The Hoosiers' first game of the week is scheduled for tonight as they face off against No. 21 Illinois (17-7, 10-6 Big Ten). The Hoosiers' second match of the week begins Friday against rival Purdue. \nIU and Illinois both come into the match after devastating weekend losses. IU has lost its last three matches to Wisconsin, Ohio State and Penn State. The Hoosiers' overall record is 7-17 and 4-12 in the conference. \nIllinois also had problems when they faced No. 9 Ohio State, falling in three matches to the Buckeyes. The Hoosiers are looking at their loss to Penn State as a stepping-stone for confidence. \n"I think we definitely gained a lot of confidence with the Penn State match. We lost, but it's the first time that we competed and players started playing to their potential," head coach Katie Weismiller said. "We had more than two players playing well at a time, and I think there were a lot of pluses for us. Illinois is coming off a pretty solid loss to Ohio State, but Ohio State is good. I think the difference is we have Illinois on our home court. We know that we can compete with them, and we have an opportunity to compete with them in front of our fans, and I think that will be a plus for us." \nThe Illini bring a tough team including senior outside hitter Shadia Haddad, who led the team with 491 kills last season and tallied 13 kills against IU in their last meeting. Another up and coming Illinois player is sophomore middle blocker Lisa Argabright who recorded 12 kills when they last faced off against IU.\nIllinois head coach Don Hardin says that the upcoming match will be a hard fight for the Illini. \n"Playing on the road in the Big Ten is a huge challenge and at Indiana is no exception," he said. "Katie (Weismiller) is an excellent coach, and Indiana has the talent to put things together at any time. This is a very important match for us."\nDespite the Illinois national ranking, the Hoosiers have confidence in their staring lineup. IU's dynamic duo's individual successes radiated in their past weekend's match against Penn State. Freshman outside hitter Christina Archibald and sophomore middle blocker Melissa Brewer both recorded 18 kills. Archibald leads the team with 309 kills for the season, while Brewer has recorded three double-doubles, including her dominating performance against PSU. \nAnother Hoosier to watch is senior defensive specialist Crecia Keithley who recorded a team-high of 15 digs against PSU.\n"I definitely think that the reason that I played well was because our team played so well," Keithley said. "It's easy to make a dig behind a great block, and we put up a lot of great blocks this (past) weekend. That made it easy to play defense behind our blockers, because they did such a great job for me."\nThe Hoosiers hard playing and confidence from the weekend has continued into this week as they look to repeat their hard fought performance from the PSU match.\n"I think that our past weekend will definitely be an advantage because we played the first game against Ohio State really well," Brewer said. "That gave us momentum going into Penn State and now coming off (the weekend), it was the best that we have ever played. I think that we have finally proven to ourselves that we can play like that."\nSenior Finishes Season Early\nThis Friday marks the final home game for seniors Laurie Gardner, Crecia Keithley and Meghan Stout, but noticeably one senior has not been included in the closing good byes. Senior transfer Disney Bronnenberg has left the team, said sports information director Laura Dewitz. Bronnenberg's final match was played Saturday against Penn State.\nWeismiller declined comment when asked about the situation and Dewitz said the coach wants to remained focus on this weekend's game.\n"Of course, this wasn't an easy decision at all," Bronnenberg said. "The bottom line is that things just didn't work out here at IU with the volleyball program the way anyone had imagined it would. I didn't transfer here for the volleyball, I transferred here to be a part of the school, and so this semester is definitely a reflection of a very good decision that I made to go to IU. Things just did not really pan out the way anyone would have liked them to with the volleyball program."\nBronnenberg said she will be running for the track team this spring.