MADISON, Wisconsin – The total turnaround continued Thursday for LOVB Madison.
A team that on February 21 lost its eighth consecutive match has now won four in a row, overpowering visiting LOVB Omaha 25-16, 25-17, 26-28, 25-16.
Match stats | LOVB Omaha roster | LOVB Madison roster
The stunning winning streak has vaulted Madison (5-7) into fourth place, a game back in the loss column of idle third-place LOVB Salt Lake (5-6) as it leapfrogged idle LOVB Austin (4-6).
And it did so by hitting a League One Volleyball-best .450 with 58 kills and just nine errors in 109 attacks.
"That was just an impressive offensive performance by our team," Madison coach Matt Fuerbringer understated.
"The thing I like the most is we lost the third set and responded in the fourth set the way we did."
The victory gives Madison, which was playing its home finale, a realistic shot at second-place Houston (6-5), which faces league-leading LOVB Atlanta (9-2) on Friday (7 p.m. Central on ESPN+). The top two teams at the end of the 16-match regular season get byes into the semifinals of the LOVB Finals in April.
Madison setter Lauren Carlini, who had a kill in two errorless tries, was magnificent, finishing with 50 assists as her team hit better and better as the match progressed. She also had an ace, two blocks and nine digs.
"We are on our way up now," Lauren declared.
Annie Drews Schumacher continued her torrid pace of the last month with 19 kills while hitting .500, by far her best of the season. She had three errors in 32 swings, an ace and a dig and is averaging 19 kills in her last five matches.
While Annie got her kills from the right, Lauren had no trouble finding Sarah Franklin and Claire Chaussee on the left.
Franklin had 18 kills with zero errors in 27 attacks. Her attack percentage of .667 is second in a LOVB match only to Lauren Stivrins' .700 from January 18. Stivrins, a middle blocker for Omaha, did not play Thursday.
Chaussee added nine kills for Madison and had two blocks, seven digs and an assist.
"The players we have allow me to be creative as a setter," Carlini said. "And our left sides have a lot of freedom to run different routes and different tempos and it's been really fun integrating that into an offense and I think as a result it's really hard to defend us."
The middles were also outstanding as Anna Hall had seven kills and hit .462 after having one error in 13 swings to go with an ace, a dig and three assists. Taylor Sandbothe had four kills with one error in eight attacks, two aces, two blocks and three digs.
Madison, which led 8-3 in blocks, had six aces and 10 serving errors. The kill percentage of .532 surpassed the .500 by Austin against Omaha on January 25.
Omaha, which hit .228, had seven aces and 13 errors.
Madison is off for a week before playing at Salt Lake.
Whereas Madison is on the way up, Omaha falls to 4-7 with its seventh defeat in a row, five in the regular season.
Madi Kubik-Banks led with 15 kills, a block, four digs and an assist. Kimberly Drewniok had 14 kills, hitting .391.
Vicky Savard got 10 of her 13 kills when she entered the match in the third set, one that Omaha won on its fifth set point. She hit .429 and had an ace and four digs.
"Vicky came in and was the spark we needed," Omaha coach Suzie Fritz said.
Gabby Blossom, getting the start at setter, had 43 assists and five digs.
"To be honest, we're going through it," Suzie said. "And I'm so proud of them and so grateful to coach them every day and just marvel at their resilience. There's nobody getting what they want right now with us."
Omaha is off until playing at home March 21 and 22 for back-to-back matches.
