A Clemson hitter spiked the ball and it soared towards the back of the court, right on the edge of the line. It was a close call, a matter of inches, but the judge made the call: The hit was in bounds. The Tigers, at one point in the match down two sets and losing in the third, had pulled a comeback to edge the Cavaliers in extra points in five set, the volleyball equivalent of double overtime.
Virginia’s 2-3 loss (27-25, 26-24, 15-25, 18-25, 15-17) to Clemson marked the second loss of the weekend for the Cavaliers after they dropped a match 1-3 (20-25, 29-27, 23-25, 21-25) to Georgia Tech Friday.
Virginia (8-7, 0-3 ACC) was unable to take advantage of playing on the home court to walk away with a victory against Georgia Tech (10-3, 2-1 ACC) or Clemson (9-5, 1-2 ACC).
Junior defensive specialist Brittani Rendina, who had 29 digs against Clemson, her career high for a single match, said the team needs to improve its confidence in order to find consistency.
“We had so many spurts of amazing volleyball,” Rendina said. “I don’t know why we get in these ruts and let them get 5-point runs.”
Senior mid-blocker Shannon Davis led the Cavaliers in points against Clemson while putting up an impressive .400 hitting percentage against Georgia Tech.
“We ... got a lot better from Virginia Tech [on Tuesday] to Georgia Tech, which was nice,” Davis said.
The improvement the Cavaliers showed over the weekend, however, was countered by mental mistakes and playing errors, including four serving errors against Clemson.
In Saturday’s match “we just didn’t bring it,” Davis said. “We got two games out closely, then just didn’t terminate in the end.”
With its victory, Clemson claimed its first ACC win of the season. The Tigers are off to a slow start after winning the ACC Championship in 2007 and earning a spot in the national top-25 in preseason polls.
Kelsey Murphy, a junior setter for the Tigers — one of only five upperclassmen on Clemson’s roster — noted an unusual parity in the conference so far this season.
“I think [the ACC] is very competitive,” Murphy said. “All the teams are neck-and-neck, so it’ll be a great year.”
The Cavaliers and Virginia coach Lee Maes will have more opportunities over the next few weeks to find out exactly how strong the conference is this year, with sets of road games against ACC opponents the next two weekends.
Maes reiterated, however, that the Cavaliers need to remain focused on how they can improve their own play instead of worrying about how the teams on the other side of the net will perform.
“We still have the same problems with starting off well, and it starts with passing,” Maes said. “It just comes down to execution, and it comes down to six individuals coming together and making it all work at the same time.”
Throughout the match against Clemson, Virginia’s outside hitters were never able to achieve the level of production that they had against Georgia Tech or preseason opponents. Maes attributed this to passing errors putting the team out of its system.
“We made errors early, and that puts us behind on the passing game because it puts so much pressure on our outside hitters,” Maes said. “As you can see tonight, our outside hitters struggle when we got out of system because we have limited options.”
Virginia’s players and coaches pointed out the end of the second game in the match against Georgia Tech as an example of the team working as a cohesive unit. At one point down 11-18, the Cavaliers stormed back and erased the margin to take a 25-24 lead before both teams traded points and Georgia Tech had a set point at 27-26. The Cavaliers were able to win the next 3 points to keep the set alive and ultimately edged the Yellow Jackets 29-27.
“We came back, we played a great game,” Davis said of the set.
With their sights still set on winning the ACC Championship, the Cavaliers will work to find a way to play at that strong level for the entire match on a regular basis.
“We have to focus, weekend by weekend,” Davis said.
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