How Liz Gregorski has emerged as a ‘magician’ for Wisconsin volleyball

With victory in sight Sunday against Illinois, Gregoski entered the match in the fifth set as a serving substitute for the University of Wisconsin volleyball team.

The Badgers had just scored to take a 9-5 lead when Gregorski subbed in for Sarah Franklin to serve. She never relinquished the duties.

Serve after serve, six of them altogether, one of them an ace and the other five resulting in hitting errors by the Illini.

UW coach Kelly Sheffield was impressed and appreciative.

“Liz gets on a long run at the fifth set,” Sheffield said. “Coming in out of the bullpen and really changing a lot of speeds, her fastball, her knuckleball, her changeup, her no-lookie-cookie. She was a magician out there.”

Wisconsin volleyball rallies past Illinois

Gregorski’s magic act as a redshirt junior is that after three seasons spent largely idle due to a series of injuries, she has carved out a not insignificant role with the No. 7 Badgers (9-3, 3-1 Big Ten).

Whether it’s filling in for Franklin or middle blocker Caroline Crawford, Gregorski has been called upon to serve in each of the first 12 matches of the season. Having made just seven token appearances in the past two seasons, that’s an accomplishment she cherishes.

“It’s always something I wanted,” Gregorski said. “I love to be depended on. It’s kind of like a drug because I just want more. I want all the responsibilities. It feels so good just to go out there and have a groove and not just be thrown a bone.

“Being a serving specialist is a recognition of trust. It makes me feel so good. A few serves and being on the stat line is so crazy to me because there has been a lot to go into those stats.”

Gregorski’s serving stat line is pretty impressive. She’s served 67 times with seven aces and just three errors, for a .955 percentage. That’s the best among the team’s regular servers and well above the 90 percent target for serving accuracy.

Gregorski helped develop her serving skills the past couple years by studying Izzy Ashburn, the team’s most effective server, every day in practice. The two would work together serving to the starters in practice.

“I’ve always watched Izzy and we have fun when we’re back on the service line together,” she said. “We have this mentality that we want to (mess) them up and make it really hard on them but also make them better. The better my serve, the better their passing gets.

“Being in our gym, if you don’t do your job somebody else will take it. If my job is to be the server for our A side and we are working…