The annual Halloween match for the University of Wisconsin volleyball team used to be a season highlight when the Badgers were virtually unbeatable.

 Not anymore as Wisconsin dressed up for Halloween Friday night at the UW Field House as just another team and lost in five sets to Michigan State in a Big Ten Conference match.

 Wisconsin's fifth loss in the past six matches meant the Badgers (15-9, 5-7 Big Ten) are continuing their freefall down the Big Ten Conference standings and are in danger of missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1995. Michigan State improved to 12-10 overall and 4-7 in the Big Ten.

 It was also the Badgers' first loss in eight matches played on or near Halloween at the Field House. The crowd of 3,329 was quiet with few students showing up in costume. That was vastly different than past seasons when the Halloween match drew the largest, and most vocal, crowd of the season.

 But this is a different UW team, too, because it lacks many of the strengths of its past teams that were always among the most fundamentally sound in the conference. This squad is bogged down with mental mistakes and lacks any consistent focus.

 ``There were just too many errors on our side of the net tonight,'' said UW coach Pete Waite after the Badgers lost to a Michigan State squad they swept in East Lansing earlier this season.

 ``At some critical times, whether it's service errors, hitting errors, net faults, they are all points for the other team in rally scoring and gave them enough momentum to make some moves on us,'' Waite added.
 
 That explains why the Badgers looked so good rallying to win the fourth set but didn't use it to create any momentum and went down looking so bad in the fifth.

 In the fourth, Wisconsin was trailing 20-18 when they rallied to win the set with a 7-1 run that included two kills each by freshman Janelle Gabrielsen and junior Brittney Dolgner, a kill by junior Caity DuPont and a block by senior Morgan Salow and Gabrielsen.

 But after DuPont got the first point of the fifth set, the Badgers couldn't mount any kind of a consistent attack and then made some inexplicable errors to allow the Spartans to run away with the set and match. Fittingly, set and match point came on a mental error at the net by the Badgers.

 ``A lot is just discipline,'' said Waite, who added that the Badgers aren't training differently this season. ``It's just a matter of when we're going to grab it and just run with a low-error game.''

 One highlight of the match was Dolgner's career-high 20 digs. She also had a team-high 18 kills. Sophomore libero Kim Kuzma had a team-high 22 digs for the Badgers, who were out-dug 84-82 and out-blocked 16-12.  The Spartans hit .171 while the Badgers hit 168.

  Freshman Kyndra Abron, a 6-foot-3 outside hitter, had a match-high 20 kills for the Spartans.

 ``I do think the passers did a good job for the most part in the match, they just have to stay consistent with it,'' said Waite. ``They made some errors late. That's the biggest thing: mental toughness throughout a five-game match.

 ``You just can't be there in spurts,'' he continued. ``It has to be everybody on the court and everybody who enters the court has to come in with the right mentality of playing a clean game and thinking and flowing together.''