The Hurricane volleyball team dropped two ACC matches at home this weekend against Clemson and Georgia Tech. The Tigers swept the ‘Canes and Georgia Tech beat Miami 3-1.
UM falls to 8-8 on the season and 2-5 in ACC play.
“We played sporadic and inconsistent,” Head Coach Nicole Lantagne Welch said. “[We played] great at times and terrible at times.”
After being swept in their previous two games, Miami came into a tough match against Clemson looking to get above .500 in ACC play. But the Tiger’s stifling defense overpowered the ‘Canes in game one and beat them 30-13. Miami came out flat, which caused them to have 16 total errors and have an attack percentage in the negatives.
Looking to bounce back from a lopsided score in game one, the ‘Canes came out with a spark in game two. Both teams battled back and forth throughout the game until two late errors cost the Hurricanes the game, 30-28.
The ‘Canes had an attack percentage over .350 and had 13 more kills than errors compared to one.
“We made a nice switch between games one and two and we played so much more in sync,” Lantagne Welch said. “We really had a good offensive game in game two and it came down to the little things with errors here and there that cost us the game.”
The Tigers controlled most of game three until a late run by the ‘Canes cut the their lead down to two, 29-27. The Tigers ended the match with a kill after a timeout.
Sophomore Genny Mayhew continued to display a strong performance by finishing the game with 15 kills. She has recorded at least 15 kills against four of her last five ACC opponents.
“Genny Mayhew came on fire and made a mid-match turnaround tonight,” Lantagne Welch said. “The energy and fire she brought was great to see and I expect that will lead us to some good things in the future.”
Sophomore Cassie Loessberg led the team with 17 digs and freshman Katie Gallagher finished with 32 assists. Junior Ashley Woods added eight kills.
Ultimately, the 25 attack errors and 11 serving errors caught up with the Hurricanes.
“We obviously didn’t serve like we wanted to. We didn’t put enough pressure on them and we made a lot of bad errors,” Lantagne Welch said.
Two days later the Hurricanes were back in action taking on Georgia Tech. Mayhew opened the game with two straight kills but late errors cost the ‘Canes the game, 30-24.
Miami stepped up on both sides of the net and took game two, 30-24. In game three, Georgia Tech regrouped and slipped by the ‘Canes, 30-27.
The Hurricanes were unable to get in sync in game four and lost the match, 3-1.
Senior Ciara Michel finished with eight kills and eight total blocks and Mayhew had 11 kills and 12 digs.
Lelan LeDoux may be contacted at l.ledoux@umiami.edu.