EAST LANSING - Emotional rollercoaster.

Those words define the Michigan volleyball team's entire season, and this past weekend was no exception. In the past week, the Wolverines have felt the highest highs, the lowest lows and everything in between.

Michigan was soundly defeated by bitter rival Michigan State Wednesday, bounced back in time to dominate at Iowa Saturday and accepted a bid to the NCAA tournament Sunday afternoon to play No. 15 seed Cal Poly.

The deepest valley on the emotional rollercoaster the team experienced this weekend happened Wednesday night when it faced off against its rival.

Michigan State junior Katie Johnson made an early-season guarantee about the Wolverines' trip to Jenison Fieldhouse to face the Spartans - if the Spartans won in Ann Arbor (which they did in 3 game), they would definitely complete the sweep of Michigan.

Her prediction couldn't have been more right.

The Spartans, led by Johnson's powerful spikes, firmly defeated Michigan in three straight games. This is the first year since 1998 that the Spartans have beaten the Wolverines in both regular-season matches.

Junior Katie Bruzdzinski got off to a hot start, recording quick kills on a dominating spike and a skillful tip over the net to give the Wolverines a 3-1 advantage.

But the Spartan defense keyed on the outside hitter, and Bruzdzinski couldn't get comfortable during the rest of the match. Bruzdzinksi, who had eight total kills, was held below double-digit kills in a match for the first time in 44 outings.

"We consider ourselves a pretty balanced team," senior Erin Penn said. "If Katie struggles, then someone is always there to pick up the slack. We just couldn't find that balance tonight."

With their offensive stars Bruzdzinksi and junior Lyndsay Miller held under wraps for most of the match, the Wolverines looked to budding outside hitter, freshman Veronica Rood, for offensive firepower. Even though Rood's 11 total kills led the team, they weren't enough.

The first game was tightly contested, but Michigan State took it after freshman Megan Bower failed to handle a vicious Spartan spike.

From there, Michigan State took control. While the defense dominated the tempo of the game, the Spartan offensive attackers, mainly Johnson, hammered Michigan with aggressive spikes.

"The first game went pretty well, but there was about five or six plays that we messed up small, insignificant things," Michigan coach Mark Rosen said. "We weren't getting after free balls and stuff like that, and we started to get frustrated. You can't play this game if you let that get to you, so it's going to be a long night if you get frustrated."

The Wolverines haven't lost the State Pride series - a trophy given to the winner of the matches played between the two schools - to the Spartans in five years. Rosen was more upset about how the team played than losing the trophy.

"If we don't execute things like that don't really matter," Rosen said. "We need to represent our team and our university. I don't think we did that very well tonight."

A win against Michigan State (10-10 Big Ten, 19-11 overall) would have all but sealed an NCAA Tournament appearance for the Wolverines.

The NCAA selection committee, who routinely invites six Big Ten teams to the tournament, took the strength of the conference into consideration and chose seven this year.

Michigan (8-12, 21-12) needed a strong performance Saturday at Iowa - its final regular season game - to cement a seventh place standing in the Big Ten.

The Wolverines got that strong performance and then some as they swept the Hawkeyes in three games.

The struggles the offense faced against the Spartans were gone as Michigan had four players with double-digit kills - three more than Wednesday night. Bruzdzinski returned to her form, recording 20 kills, to help the Michigan offense bounce back against the Hawkeyes.

The junior started hot again, but unlike the Michigan State match, she retained that momentum.

The Wolverine defense was also able to calm down and play its style of game. The team registered a total of 75 digs, led by Bower with 23, and 12 blocks.

Rosen said that after Wednesday's difficult loss the team responded well in the practices leading up to the match against Iowa (2-18, 13-19). The team worked on its offensive tempo and keeping defensive schemes under control.

"This week we just practiced on getting back to our style of game," junior Sarah Draves said. "We knew we had to stop focusing so much on the other side of the net and just play volleyball."

With the win, the selection committee, who announced the bracket at 3 p.m. Sunday, extended a bid to the Wolverines to play Cal Poly (13-1, 22-5) on Dec.1 in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

"I think we deserve to get (into the tournament)," sophomore Kerry Hance said. "We've had a great season.