Mark Rosen’s Michigan Wolverines are winning games, and they’re doing it with kills: 14.29 kills per set to be exact, which ranks second-best in the Big Ten and 13th nationally. 

They’re getting those kills thanks to good first contacts and a great setting by junior Mackenzie Welsh. A balanced offense with three players topping 150 kills so far this season also helps. 

But there’s something else. Something 19-year head coach Rosen says he can’t track on the stat sheet, but he feels the impact it makes on matches. His team competes.

“We’ve had a couple of close matches that could have gone either way, and they tend to keep going our way,” Rosen said. “I think a lot of that is because our kids are just really competitive.”

And that, he says, is a reflection of Carly Skjodt.

Senior Carly Skjodt had a career-high 29 kills in tonight's win, and freshman Kayla Bair set a career-high with 9 kills and five blocks in her first start!

Check out these ? highlights. #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/IuFHsAMlbh

— Michigan Volleyball (@umichvball) October 7, 2018

Skjodt, a 6-1 senior outside hitter, leads the team in kills with 269. A 2017 Third Team All-American in 2017, Skjodt is the reigning Big Ten Player of the Week, having earned the honor two weeks running.

“People look at [Carly] and think maybe she doesn’t care that much because she’s never going to express her frustration, but I tell you, that is the most competitive kid I’ve been around,” Rosen said. “She wants to win so badly. But she gets it. She doesn’t have to pitch a fit if we don’t have success in a set or a match. She’s just internally incredibly competitive and I think her team feeds off that.”

With a 17-2 overall record, 6-2 in the Big Ten, Michigan ranks third in the conference standings, tied with Nebraska. The Huskers are one of the only two teams to defeat the Wolverines this season, the other being Penn State. In both losses, Rosen says his team’s difficulty began in serve receive. 

“We’re not a great team out-of-system,” he admitted. “Both those matches we became really unbalanced because we didn’t handle first contact very well.”

This week, with a road match versus No. 7 Illinois on Friday looming large, serve receive will once again be key.

“[Illinois] serves the crap out of the ball. They go back there and tattoo it,” Rosen said.

To combat the Fighting Illini, the Wolverines will have to send over some tough serves of their own in hopes of keeping Illinois out of system, because blocking, especially with middle Cori Crocker out indefinitely due to injury, is not a strength. Michigan ranks second from the bottom in the Big Ten with 1.97 blocks per set as a team. 

They may not be stopping opposing teams’ attacks at the net very often, but led by libero Jenna Lerg the Wolverines come together to form a very tenacious floor defense. Lerg ranks first in the conference and 25th in NCAA DI with 5.29 digs per set and has helped Michigan hold opponents to a .153 hitting percentage.

“Jenna is such a great reader,” Rosen said. “She doesn’t have to make the crazy diving scrambling play very often because she puts herself in the right spot. She gets the game. When you talk volleyball with her, it’s amazing what she sees. She’s got a lot of free range to make adjustments with our serve receive and our defense because she sees things really well from on the court.”

We're on the road this weekend! ✈️

» Friday at No. 7 Illinois | 7pm CT
» Saturday at Northwestern | 7pm CT
? https://t.co/gLzQe9UXGi pic.twitter.com/HENU4iPI72

— Michigan Volleyball (@umichvball) October 17, 2018

Heading into the 2018 season, Rosen knew he had solid returners in Skjodt, Lerg, and Welsh. But he also had a highly regarded recruiting classes coming in made up of six freshmen and Seattle University transfer Katerina Glavinic. From that group, outside hitter Paige Jones of New Bremen, Ohio, has made the biggest splash.

Jones has started in every one of Michigan’s 19 matches and with 206 kills, she trails only Skjodt on the Michigan stat sheet. She’s the No. 2 server in the conference with 0.41 aces per set (26 total on the season), and her 3.22 kills per set ranks 13th in the Big Ten. After playing only front row at the start of the season, Jones now plays six rotations and has become a go-to option for Welsh even when she’s in the back row.

Welsh likes to run the back row attack with Skjodt, too. In fact, Rosen says his top outside’s hitting percentage is better out of the back row than the front. 

“We run the back row in system, we rarely set the back row out of system,” Rosen explained. “That’s just a tactical things for us, we’re using it when it’s a good pass or when it’s a good dig and I think it’s helped our offense a ton.”

Illinois will be only Michigan’s fourth ranked opponent of the season, but the Wolverines’ sweep of then-No. 14 Purdue two weeks ago hints at what Michigan is capable of. The test will be to see if the Wolverines can maintain their offensive numbers against a team as strong defensively and behind the service line as Illinois.

Tune in right here on FloVolleyball to watch this top-20 matchup between Michigan and Illinois, Friday night at 7 PM CT.