The University of Illinois has still not said how long their lone senior, and starting libero, Brandi Donnelly will be out of action with an injured knee, but they are planning to play without her this weekend against Ohio State and Maryland.
The injury ‘isn’t as bad as we originally though,’ Tamas told a local CBS station.though they are planning to be without her for this weekend’s matches against Ohio State on Friday and Maryland on Saturday.
Until last weekend’s 3-0 loss to Purdue, which Donnelly left in the 2nd set, she had played in all 53 of the team’s sets this season, leading the team with 223 digs and also scoring 8 aces. A combination effort of the 5 other underclassmen defensive specialists on the roster will fill in for Donnelly’s spot, with Caroline Welsh getting a big chunk of that time in their first result post-Donnelly against Indiana.
When the team faces Maryland, they’ll have a good measuring stick for how well their young defensive players are doing in their replacement duties – they face Kelsey Wicinski, the Maryland libero, in that match. She leads the Big Ten with 4.78 digs/set.
This is the first substantial injury of Donnelly’s career at any level.
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