Mark StewartMilwaukee Journal Sentinel
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MADISON – Before the season, Wisconsin volleyball coach Kelly Sheffield raved about Sarah Franklin, saying her play was the best in the gym during the offseason.
The senior outside hitter has lived up to that standard. She leads the team in kills (3.82 per set) and averages 1.88 digs per set while posting a .290 hitting percentage and being a leader in serve receive for the Badgers.
“I feel great and I feel like all of this has been shone from all the work I’ve put in behind the scenes because I’ve put in a lot of hours to get to this point,” she said. “There were just a lot of long times in preseason in the gym and in spring and in summer before Europe that it was trying to get a little bit better, and I feel it’s showing now and that is what’s really exciting.”
Franklin has played so well that it’s easy to forget that it was only a few months ago she was battling a shoulder issue that threatened her career.
Over the next few days, the second-ranked Badgers (18-1, 9-1 Big Ten) will begin the second half of the conference season with a couple of matches against opponents they will face just once this season. They’ll play at Michigan State at 6 p.m. Friday and play host to Minnesota at 3:45 p.m. Sunday in a contest that will be broadcast nationally on Fox.
We checked in with Franklin before the team hit the road.
Returning to Michigan State won’t be weird
Franklin played at Michigan State for two seasons. Her freshman season was cut short due to injury. As a sophom*ore she ranked third in the Big Ten with 3.96 kills per set and was a first-team all-conference selection.
She transferred after coach Cathy George retired. The Spartans roster has been almost completely flipped since then.
The program also has moved since Franklin left. The Spartans now play at the Breslin Center rather than Jenison Field House
“It’s going to be a whole (different) facility. All new coaches. I never played with any of these coaches,” Franklin said. “I’ve only played with one of the girls left, Julia Bishop. She was there when I was there, but everyone else is new, international or transfers or freshmen. Everyone else is new."
Sarah Franklin served up classic performance at Nebraska
The Badgers' five-set loss to Nebraska on Saturday was one of Franklin’s finest. She finished with 17 kills, a .265 hitting percentage and seven digs. She also took 52 serves, the most she has received in a match at UW, and had just two errors.
Not only did she have a .962 success rate in serve receive, but the placement of her passes was also at a high level as well. It is part of the game Franklin takes pride in and has improved at in the past year.
"She’s passing a friendlier ball this year than she was last year,” Sheffield said. “Last year a lot of times that ball would come out really low and fast and it was really hard to get underneath it and have some rhythm.”
Being targeted so much in serve receive can allow a player to get into a rhythm in that part of game or it can wear on them or become a mental hurdle if they're struggling.
“I really didn’t notice it in the Nebraska game, really,” Franklin said when asked about being targeted so much. “I was kind of playing with a forward mentality. As long as you have a forward mentality of not looking back at what happened then everything seems like it’s just another ball.”
Franklin’s volume, efficiency rare in Big Ten
Franklin ranks seventh in the Big Ten in kills (3.82) but her .290 hitting percentage is significantly higher than any of the players ahead of her on that list. She is hitting .321 in Big Ten play, which is impressive considering the number of swings she gets.
How well she fares in the second half of the season when the schedule will be tougher merits watching, but right now she's is excited about how she is playing and the potential to get better.
“I want to get to a point where everything is covered, defense, serve receive, hitting, blocking, to where everything is on at all times,” she said. “Volleyball is not a perfect game, but I want to get as close to that as humanly possible.”
