The Virginia volleyball team could not break its losing streak in its first weekend of ACC play, falling to Wake Forest Friday, 3-1, before losing a heartbreaker Saturday against Duke, 3-2.
The Cavaliers (3-11, 0-2 ACC) came into Friday’s matchup looking to end an eight-game losing streak in its second half of tournament play after a solid week of practice.
The team won the first set against the Demon Deacons (5-8, 1-1 ACC) but dropped the next three to end the match. The second and third sets were decided by two points.
Senior outside hitter Haley Kole led Virginia with 23 kills, but the team could not contain Wake Forest’s outside hitter combo of freshman Caroline Rassenfoss and junior Kylie Long, who went off with 26 and 15 kills, respectively.
In their second game of the weekend, the Cavaliers faced the Blue Devils (8-4, 2-0 ACC) in an absolute thriller.
After Virginia took the first set, Duke grinded out a second set victory in a 32-30 tiebreak. Duke would take the third set, but Virginia answered with a 26-24 tiebreak win in set four to force a final set.
The Blue Devils topped the Cavaliers, 15-7, in set five to take a hard fought match against a major ACC rival. Kole once again led the Cavaliers with 25 kills against a balanced Blue Devils attack that had four players attain double-digit kills.
Virginia will once again go back to the drawing board to find out how it can finally end its losing streak. The Cavaliers hit the road to take on archrival Virginia Tech (6-7, 1-1 ACC) Friday before heading north to play Pittsburgh (11-3, 2-0 ACC) Sunday.
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