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Trailing 24-15 near the end of the first set, Syracuse inched within eight points after a Veronica Sierzant kill. But on Sierzant’s ensuing serve, Lauren McCabe’s attacking error ended the set. Just as a slight swing of momentum emerged, it was taken just as quickly.

On Friday, Syracuse (2-13, 0-5 Atlantic Coast Conference) lost 3-0 to Virginia Tech (11-5, 1-4 ACC), spoiling the team’s return home after two weeks on the road. The loss marked SU’s fifth straight defeat and showcased a similar theme of self-inflicted mistakes.

Throughout the contest, Virginia Tech went on runs of three straight scores or more nine times.

“We just have to manage their runs to keep them to a minimum and increase our runs if we can,” Syracuse head coach Bakeer Ganesharatnam said. “You have to either serve the ball really aggressively to get them out of system or you have to stay in system with good service receives and that way you can put pressure on them. It goes back to the basics we wanted to execute today. We just were not able to do that consistently.”

Cherlin Antonio eventually stopped an early, four-score Virginia Tech run in the first set. The junior ended the contest with a team-high nine kills. The Orange then scored again off of a Hokie attack error to make the score 5-4.

Syracuse rattled off three straight points from unforced errors by Virginia Tech. However, the Hokies responded by scoring four straight to take a 13-9 lead. That run, however, was only their second-largest in the set. Later on, Virginia Tech embarked on a commanding 7-0 run. The stretch gave VT its biggest lead of the period at nine and the Hokies held on to win the first set, 25-16.

Although Virginia Tech’s offense was prolific, Ganesharatnam thought that SU could have done more to make things harder on the opposition.

“[Virginia Tech] did a good job on offense but I also think a lot of it had to do with what we didn’t do,” Ganesharatnam said. “I didn’t think we did a very good job with our blocks. I think lining up the block needed to be better. And our timing, it took us too long to get the timing right.”

Virginia Tech started the second set on a 3-0 run. SU stopped the set-opening run by VT with an Antonio kill before VT answered by notching consecutive points. Syracuse followed up by scoring two straight but relinquished a few directly afterwards. Big runs were hard to come by for the Orange.

Then, the Hokies started scoring in bunches. With the score at 7-4 in the second set, VT went on a 5-1 run to prompt an SU timeout. The break didn’t help much as VT scored eight of the next 10 points, pushing the lead well into double digits at 20-7. The lead proved to be insurmountable for the Orange as they fell to 0-2 in the match.

Though the final set of the match was the closest, Syracuse remained without a solution to Virginia Tech’s fluid offense. By the end Syracuse was forced into another timeout, it trailed 11-3. Upon returning to the court, a Zharia Harris-Waddy kill spurred a 4-0 run. After a few back-and-forths, the Hokies held a 16-10 advantage. SU then went on its biggest run of the match, scoring six straight to tie the game.

“My mindset was just I just wanted to keep pushing and I just wanted to win the set,” Sierzant said. “We came back and we just kept on pushing and pushing. I was thinking about the overall goal. Like, if we get this point, then we’ll get the next point.”

But the offensive outburst by SU was spoiled almost as quickly as it had started. Virginia Tech one-upped Syracuse with a 7-0 run, effectively ending the set and the match.

“We felt like Virginia Tech had some weaknesses on defense,” Ganesharatnam said. “I really think we would have had a good match and a good chance to compete against Virginia Tech. Unfortunately, the performance was just not good enough today.”

Published on October 7, 2023 at 12:39 am