Volleyball Falls to No. 13 UNC
September 20, 2014 08:48 PM | General
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| Libero Gianna Gotterba led the Mountaineers with 10 digs. |
| Photo courtesy WVU Photography/Brian Persinger |
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Despite a tough battle against the 13th-ranked team in the country, the West Virginia University volleyball team dropped a 3-0 tilt to North Carolina at Carmichael Arena on Saturday evening as part of the Big 12-ACC Challenge. The Tar Heels took the match in set scores of 25-20, 25-19 and 25-21.
WVU hit .130 in the match, one of its lowest clips of the season. Jordan Anderson was an offensive leader with 12 kills and a pair of block assists to go along with a service ace. Hannah Sackett and Nikki Attea each had six kills, and Caleah Wells had five while hitting for a team-best .273 clip.
Sackett and Evyn McCoy each had a team-best four block assists, while Wells contributed three as the Mountaineers recorded 8.0 team blocks. Attea and Anderson each added a pair as well.
Gianna Gotterba led the team with 10 dug balls. Attea recorded five on the evening, while Melvina Brown and Anna Panagiotakopoulos each had two. Lamprini Konstantinidou had 26 assists for the Mountaineers.
The Tar Heels, who hit .272, were led by Lauren McAdoo’s 12 kills. Victoria McPherson had nine kills and eight block assists as UNC recorded a total of 12.0 team blocks. Ece Taner and Chaney LaRue each had a pair of service aces.
West Virginia hit .321 in the first set, improving from the previous night’s showing at Duke. However, No. 13 UNC came out hot hitting for a .429 clip to take the set. The Tar Heels took an early 4-0 lead, forcing WVU to burn its first timeout. The Mountaineers were able to score four straight soon after the timeout, cutting the deficit to just a point at 7-6. Despite Anderson putting down six kills in the set, the Mountaineers couldn’t overcome the Tar Heels’ early lead. A pair of WVU errors gave UNC the 25-20 win.
Unable to maintain their solid offense from set one, the Mountaineers hit .067 in set two with Anderson’s three kills and a service pacing the squad. North Carolina again jumped out to an early lead at 7-2. A kill from Sackett cut the deficit to four at 10-6, but the Tar Heels took the next two points to lead it 12-6. Sackett and Attea added kills, thought the Mountaineers still found themselves down 17-13. Anderson found the court, then had an ace to extend the set. However, the Tar Heels took it on a kill 25-19 to take a 2-0 lead in the match.
Anderson once again recorded three kills, as did Attea, in set three as the Mountaineers tallied a total of 11 and posted 5.0 team blocks. The Tar Heels, who had 10 kills in the set, took a 4-0 lead on a pair of blocks and a pair of WVU attacking errors before stretching their advantage to 8-2. West Virginia returned the favor of scoring four straight to cut the deficit to three, down 9-6. Sackett and McCoy each threw down a kill, then teamed for a block, to help the Mountaineers to a 4-0 run that brought them within three at 20-17. Soon after, a block from Sackett and Wells along with a kill by Attea brought WVU within one down 22-21. In the end, the Mountaineers couldn’t close the gap and fell 25-21 in the set to drop the match 3-0.
“These teams don’t let you make errors,” said coach Jill Kramer. “Texas is not going to let you make errors, so these are the types of teams we need to be playing heading into conference play. It was good for us to get to see them. North Carolina is a great blocking team and a great serving team. They did a good job of that tonight and we’re going to see that again on Wednesday.”
West Virginia will open Big 12 on Wednesday as the Mountaineers welcome No. 2 Texas to WVU Coliseum. The match will be televised on ESPNU with a 7 p.m. start time.
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