While the No. 8 Michigan volleyball team fell victim to two unusual weaknesses this past weekend, senior outside hitter Veronica Rood had a career-best road trip.

The Wolverines, who usually pride themselves on taking control of the ball and serving aggressively, struggled with both all weekend.

On Saturday night against Wisconsin (3-3 Big Ten, 8-7 overall), Michigan looked to correct its serving mishaps from Friday against Iowa.

Instead, the Wolverines saw their errors increase exponentially. According to Michigan coach Mark Rosen, "errors across the board" — such as attack miscues at the net and ballhandling errors — plagued the Wolverines throughout the entire match.

Michigan dropped the match in four sets (26-28, 25-23, 25-18, 25-21) to the Badgers. The usually explosive Wolverine attack was held to a .219 offensive clip, recording 28 errors in the losing effort.

Still, one of the bright spots for the team was the stellar performance from Rood, who recorded 14 kills for the Wolverines (4-2, 16-3).

"She was phenomenal for us all weekend," Rosen said. "All week in practice we worked on getting her the ball more and getting her more touches and then carrying that into the matches this weekend."

The previous night proved to be the same story for the Wolverines, who squared off against a defensive-minded Iowa team, which took a set from No. 1 Penn State last weekend.

After going down 2-1 against the Hawkeyes, Michigan bounced back in the fourth set on the heels of Rood's five kills.

"(Junior setter) Lexi (Zimmerman) got me involved early in the offense and that really helped me to build momentum and confidence," Rood said through the Athletic Department. "I feel like Lexi did a really smart job of using me a lot in transition, which helped to get their defense off balance, and once we got going, we just found a rhythm together."

The Temperance native notched a career-high 19 kills against the Hawkeyes (1-4, 9-8).

In the fifth and deciding set, Rood and senior outside hitter Juliana Paz sparked the Wolverine offense. Michigan jumped out to an 8-3 lead, eventually winning the set 15-11. The Wolverines are 2-2 in five-set matches this year.

But despite the come-from-behind win, Rosen was displeased with his team's efforts in the serving department. The Wolverines had 15 errors from the baseline, a season high in Big Ten play.

The split this weekend puts the team in third place in the Big Ten. While it's still very early in conference play, if it wants to compete for a Big Ten title, Michigan will need to take better care of the ball, something it couldn't do in Iowa City and Madison.