‘Right now is gold’: Hilley, Rettke prepare for final NCAA tournament run with Badgers volleyball

The Wisconsin Badgers have never won a national title in volleyball, but they’ve been close. Now some of the program’s most storied players are preparing to make their final NCAA tournament run.

This week, head coach Kelly Sheffield talked about his team’s maturity, highlighting experienced players like Danielle Hart and Lauren Barnes. But perhaps no athletes have left bigger marks on this program than Sydney Hilley and Dana Rettke, who are both in their fifth year at Wisconsin.

They came to the program from very different places, Sheffield recalled. Hilley was a volleyball geek in high school, while Rettke was a strong athlete, but new to the sport. Now they’re both members of the Big Ten’s all-conference first team, and Hilley was recently named the Big Ten’s setter of the year.

“They’ve been really, really, really good for this program, and I hope this program has been really good for them because they’ve met a lot to us,” Sheffield said.

Led by Hilley and Rettke, the No. 4 Badgers defeated Colgate at the UW Fieldhouse in the tournament’s first round on Friday night. The Badgers will take on Florida Gulf Coast in the second round Saturday.

Wisconsin senior libero @laurenbarnes_2 joins the Selection Show to talk about having one final opportunity in her collegiate career to lead @BadgerVB to a national title.

📺 @ESPNU#NCAAVB pic.twitter.com/sWuwzShZ1w

— NCAA Women’s Volleyball (@NCAAVolleyball) November 29, 2021

The tournament bracket was released Sunday. It’s always a special moment — no matter how many times you experience it, Sheffield said.

“The anticipation of who you’re playing and seeing your name come up is just something that you don’t take for granted,” he said.

The team is excited to be hosting the early rounds, Sheffield said. Any UW-Madison coach will praise the enthusiasm of Wisconsin fans, he said.

“When they are jacked up, and the juice is high, man, these facilities are as good as anywhere in the country, and certainly the Fieldhouse gets like that,” Sheffield said.

Wisconsin has now won its last six matches, including showdowns against Minnesota and Nebraska, who both received tournament seeds. The team clinched its third-consecutive Big Ten volleyball title last week with a win over Indiana.

The Badgers reached the last match of the 64-team tournament in 2019, losing to Stanford. Last year, they fell to Texas in the Final Four. Despite its recent tournament success, Sheffield isn’t too worried about his team looking ahead.

“Right now is gold. You don’t ever get these days back,” he said. “You look back at them and appreciate them so much. It’s just so much fun at this stage right now.”

Louisville, Pittsburgh and Texas are the tournament’s top three seeds.