By Dennis Punzel for VolleyballMag.com
Izzy Ashburn and Julia Orzol will never forget their first meeting.
It was in the summer of 2019 and Ashburn was an incoming freshman on the University of Wisconsin volleyball team, trying to get to know her new teammates and carve out a role on the team.
Orzol likewise was a new member of the Polish Junior National team, playing her first match against the Badgers in Maribor, Slovenia, one of the stops on Wisconsin’s European exhibition tour.
Orzol was playing the right side and on one of her first swings she sent the ball toward Ashburn, who was in as a defensive specialist.
The two were reminiscing about that play recently as the Badgers prepared for another European tour, a 12-day trip that begins Friday.
“You hit me in the face,” Ashburn recalled.
“That’s how true friendship starts,” Orzol replied.
That trip also was the start of a remarkable run for the Badgers, who would go on to win the first of four consecutive Big Ten Conference championships that fall and advance to the championship match of the NCAA tournament in the first of three consecutive trips to the natoinal semifinals.
Coach Kelly Sheffield is hoping that this year’s trip, which will take them to Istanbul, Türkiye; Venice and…
