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Volleyball serves it up on the road against Clemson, Louisville

After back-to-back five set wins, Cavaliers leave town hoping to continue ACC success

The Virginia volleyball team hits the road this weekend, looking to continue its two-game winning streak against Clemson and Louisville.

“We beat both of those teams last time, but that was last time,” sophomore outside hitter Jasmine Burton said. “We need to go into it with the mindset of wanting to win again and not getting complacent, not saying that just because we won last weekend means we’re going to win this weekend.”

Last weekend, the Cavaliers (13-9, 6-3) grinded out two five-set wins against NC State and Notre Dame. Virginia won the first set in both matches before losing two straight sets and coming back to win the fourth and fifth sets, improving to 8-1 at home this season.

“Our main focus this week will be finishing games and starting off strong,” sophomore defensive specialist Karlie Suber said. “We start strong and then we kind of taper off and then we get strong again, and sometimes that’s not enough to just win the set. We just want to beat people in a timely manner and do what we can to finish the game.”

The Cavaliers were able to pull through in large part thanks to Burton and sophomore outside hitter Haley Kole. After sitting out the Duke game two weekends ago with a foot injury, Burton got right back into the swing of things, hitting double digit kills in both games, totaling 25 kills along with Kole’s 42.

“My coaches just constantly remind me to stay aggressive,” Burton said. “We needed me to be aggressive and on point to win, so in my head, I just had the mentality of going after every ball and going hard after every swing, and that really showed in the way I played.”

In the two sets that they lost against NC State, Virginia hit a dismal .049 and .100, as well as a .000 in the third set against Notre Dame. Head coach Dennis Hohenshelt hopes the Cavaliers can improve their attack against a Clemson team that leads the ACC in total blocks.

“On Monday, we worked on some pretty simple things that we wanted to do and on our out-of-system attacking,” Hohenshelt said. “When we pass the ball pretty well, we’re pretty good in system. It’s when we have to hit that high ball outside that we’re not really good at, so we spent some time on that, just being a little more patient. We’re going to see some big blockers, so we tried to work on attacking against the bigger blockers.”

Leading the Clemson (16-7, 4-5 ACC) blocking charge is senior middle hitter Karis Watson. Watson leads the ACC in both total blocks and blocks per set, and was involved in five blocks in the first meeting between Clemson and Virginia Sept. 26.

One player who did not play for Clemson in the first game against Virginia was senior outside hitter Kristin Faust. She currently leads her team in kills after tearing her ACL in the spring of 2013.

“She’s a small outside hitter but a very experienced kid,” Hohenshelt said. “They’re doing very much the same thing that they were doing then, so there aren’t really a lot of adjustments to the scouting report. We had a lot of success with our offense in the last match: when we were in system, they had a hard time stopping us.”

Since losing to the Cavaliers, the Tigers have gone 5-4 and their freshman setter Kate Federico has been named ACC Freshman of the Week. She received the honor Oct. 14 after recording 90 combined assists in two wins against Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech. Federico also leads the team in service aces.

After the Clemson game, the Cavaliers will fly to Louisville (13-8, 5-4 ACC) for their second game of the weekend.

“Louisville switched some things around last weekend, but I like what they did with their lineup — it seems to work best for them,” Hohenshelt said. “I think they’re playing pretty well right now, and I think they’re the team right now that’s a surprise. It’s going to be hard to win there: we’re playing in a basketball arena. It’ll be fun to play there because it’s a really knowledgeable fan base, and they like good volleyball.”

The Cardinals have won three and lost two matches since their Oct. 4 loss to Virginia. Like Clemson’s Federico, Louisville’s freshman middle blocker Tess Clark has emerged as a star this season. She was named ACC Freshman of the Week Oct. 20 after hitting .538 with 17 kills and .529 with 10 kills against NC State and Syracuse, respectively.

That is good enough to lead the team and sit second in the conference standings, helping the Cardinals reach number four in that same statistical category. Clark also leads the team in blocks, and Louisville’s defense is third in the league in digs.

To beat Louisville and Clemson again, and to keep their NCAA Tournament hopes alive, the Cavaliers will have to start winning on the road. Eight of the Cavaliers’ nine losses have been away from their home court, and they still have four more road games on the schedule after this weekend.

“The travel part the next two weeks is not going to be easy,” Hohenshelt said. “We have to be tough mentally and physically, but the road thing doesn’t bother me as much. It’s more so how we handle the road — the five-and-a-half, six-hour bus trips. You can say, ‘Hey we’re not good on the road,’ but I can also say, ‘Hey, if I measure the floor: it’s the same distance at Clemson as it is here.’”

Opening serve is set for 7 p.m. Friday in Clemson, South Carolina and at 2 p.m. Sunday in Louisville, Kentucky.

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