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Team takes two of three at home

Wins against USC Upstate, Western Carolina in Cavalier Classic propel successful start to season

In front of a small but raucous crowd in Memorial Gymnasium Friday night, the Virginia volleyball team took the court against Western Michigan for its season opener and the first of three games in the Marriott Cavalier Classic. Despite dropping the initial match against the Broncos, however, the Cavaliers rebounded to take both Saturday contests against USC Upstate and Western Carolina and conclude their opening week with a winning record.

"Obviously I don't like losing our season opener," said junior middle blocker Jessica O'Shoney, who had nine kills in the match. "Although they were a really tough team [and] really good competition to start our season off with. I think maybe if we had played them at the end of the tournament we definitely could have beat them with more game experience under our belt."

The tightly-contested match against Western Michigan (3-0) - in which three of the four sets were decided by three points or less - featured a strong performance from Virginia senior outside hitter Simone Asque, who finished with a team-high 12 kills but had a special opening night for another reason. Asque also enjoyed the unique opportunity to face her younger sister, Western Michigan sophomore outside hitter Gillian Asque, on the court for the first time in college play. Though the Broncos took the match, Simone did edge out her sister statistically in number of kills and digs during the match.

"Me and my younger sister are very close so at first when I saw her [during] the earlier parts of the day [it] was really nice to be able to talk to her," Asque said. "And then losing was bittersweet, because I lost but at the same time it's great that I got to see my sister play this weekend and to see the whole family out [to watch]. I beat her at everything else so I might as well give her one thing, she can have that one win."

After the tough Friday loss, it was obvious that Virginia (2-1) made the right adjustments as the squad dominated the points of attack and jumped out to early leads throughout its two Saturday tilts. The Cavaliers did not drop a set, defeating both USC Upstate and Western Carolina, 3-0. It seemed most everything went Virginia's way Saturday - including the reversal of a controversial call by the head referee during the match against USC Upstate (1-2) that thwarted a Spartans rally and ended the second set 25-23 in favor of Virginia. Against Western Carolina (0-3), the Cavaliers also benefited from a point when the ball bounced off the head of freshman right side hitter Tori Janowski only to hit the floor on the other side of the net.

"The things [on Friday] that I think we didn't do a very good job of managing was putting our energies in the right place," coach Lee Maes said. "One of the things that was really important for us was to try to have some calm composure about the approach we take in playing, and I thought there was a lot of extra energy exuded that allowed us to play less composed [on Friday]. So we have seen some changes from Friday night's match to [Saturday's] where we've tried to have more consistency, and I think that has settled down our play and allowed us to be more cohesive."

While Asque, Virginia's undisputed senior leader, and O'Shoney paced the team with 34 and 29 total kills respectively during the weekend, the play of the freshmen on the squad also was a factor throughout the round-robin tournament. Janowski recorded 21 kills and 19 digs throughout the weekend while freshman libero Abbey Welborn tallied 13 digs of her own. Notably, 2010 ACC Freshman of the Year McKenzie Adams - who is no longer a member of the team - had 11 kills through her first three matches while playing a similar position to Janowski.

"We have some dynamic freshmen," Maes said. "Tori Janowski is a wonderful athlete who has a lot of natural gifts, and now it's for us to try and get her to continue being a little more disciplined and refined in her skills as well as understanding our systems and making sure that she is on the same page as everyone else on the court. Abbey Welborn has certainly been a very positive influence in her role, providing us a lot of defensive intensity and defensive energy and being a playmaker."

Beginning this Friday at 11 a.m., the Cavaliers once again host a three-game, round-robin tournament, the Holiday Inn Jefferson Cup. Virginia welcomes East Carolina, No. 3-ranked California and Long Island to Charlottesville, and coming off the two Saturday wins, the team will look to keep its winning streak alive.

"We're trying to have a season of being top in the ACC and having a postseason, so this will be our test," Asque said, "if we want to do those big goals we've got to make it happen starting now, so I'm excited"

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