The Virginia volleyball team picked up two critical conference wins this weekend by beating both Duke and Wake Forest. The two wins, however, were as different as night and day.
The Cavaliers (15-7, 5-5 ACC) dominated Duke Friday en route to a 3-0 (30-24, 30-15, 30-24) victory over the Blue Devils (15-7, 6-5 ACC). Virginia followed up that performance with a hard-fought 3-2 (30-25, 30-25, 24-30, 28-30, 15-11) win against the Demon Deacons (9-12, 1-9 ACC). With the two wins, the Cavaliers were able even their conference record.
"I like where we are," Virginia coach Melissa Aldrich Shelton said. "5-5 probably puts us back in the middle of things again."
Against Wake Forest, the Cavaliers went the full five games in a tightly contested match where the margin of victory was slim. The fifth game began with the Demon Deacons scoring the first three points. The Cavaliers would stay close and tied it 4-4 following two consecutive aces from setter Emily Kirkwood. The Cavaliers took their first lead in the final game when a Lindsay Osco kill made it 9-8. Virginia never trailed in the game after that point and closed the match on a kill from freshman Sarah Kirkwood.
"We were disappointed after losing that fourth game," senior co-captain Alexis Geocaris said. "But this team has so much heart and determination, so we knew we were not going to let up. Even though we were down three points at the beginning of the game, we kept forging on and pulled it out."
Virginia opened the match by winning the first two games by identical scores of 30-25. In those games, the Cavalier offense was led by Osco and Sarah Kirkwood. Osco had six kills in the first game to pace Virginia, while Sarah Kirkwood had eight kills with an impressive .889 hitting percentage in the second game. Both players finished the match with 22 kills to share the team lead.
The next two games slipped away from the Cavaliers. In game three, Virginia took the lead 24-23, but Wake Forest ran off the next seven consecutive points to steal the game and prolong the match. In the fourth game, the Cavaliers scored five unanswered points to tie the game 28-28. Virginia could not continue the run, however, and Wake Forest scored the final two points to force the fifth game.
Serving was crucial to the Cavalier victory. Virginia had at least one ace in all five games and totaled 13 aces on the match. Emily Kirkwood led the way with five aces.
Emily Kirkwood's serves also were crucial in the victory Friday. In the second game of that match, she had three kills to help the Cavaliers win that game 30-15 as Virginia upset the second-place Blue Devils.
"We've actually been working on short serves in practice, and that's kind of my thing -- the short knuckleball serve," Emily Kirkwood said. "It takes their middle out of the offense, and they can't really do much"
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