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Syracuse (13-12, 1-12 Atlantic Coast Conference) was defeated in straight sets by No. 4 Louisville (20-3, 12-1 ACC) Friday evening. The loss marks three straight for the Orange as they’ve only won one set across the stretch.

The Cardinals got off to a hot start in the first set but aces and kills from Skylar George kept the Orange within reach. George had back-to-back aces to cut the deficit to two at 10-8.

Louisville exploited the middle of the court offensively, hitting its shots between the Syracuse front and backline. Louisville had 17 kills to Syracuse’s eight in the first set. Phekran Kong and Anna DeBeer helped Louisville cruise to a first-set victory 25-17. An attacking error by George gave the Cardinals the first set as they put up an attacking percentage of .452.

Syracuse performed well in the second set, recording its best attacking percentage and sideout percentage. The set featured three ties and one lead change. Two kills from Zharia Harris-Waddy helped Syracuse take the early lead as the sophomore middle blocker has elevated her game. The set was tightly contested but the Cardinals started to build their lead after consecutive errors from the Orange put the score at 17-11. Louisville kept its lead to about seven for the rest of the set and an error from Ava Palm sealed the deal as Louisville took the second set 25-18.

The third set was not nearly as competitive for Syracuse as the Cardinals went up 11-4 and never looked back. Syracuse had a hitting percentage of 0.077 and totaled seven attacking errors. DeBeer kept the Cardinals in charge and her 13th kill ended the game as Louisville won the final set 25-15.

“Louisville put a lot of pressure from the service line, our service broke down a little bit and then our offense had a hard time getting some positive results,” SU head coach Bakeer Ganesharatnam said.

One of the Cardinals’ keys to victory was their play at the net. Their middle blockers presented issues for Syracuse’s offense as Cara Cresse, who is 6-foot-6, had four blocks. Every time the Cardinals attacked from near the net they either converted kills or forced Syracuse to make a play defensively.

Louisville also benefited from excellent defense. The Orange only totaled 29 kills and were well below their season average for kills per set. Elena Scott, DeBeer and Kamden Schrand had the backline covered as they combined for 29 of the team’s 52 digs.

“I think the biggest difference between that level and maybe some level below, is consistency. They don’t just do very good things, they do very good things for a very long time, that’s the difference. I think we have gotten to a point where we do some really good things, but we need to be more consistent with that,” Ganesharatnam said.

Syracuse’s bright spot came from its middle blockers Anastasiia Nikolnikova and Harris-Waddy. With Palm having a tough time offensively, the middle blockers stepped up combining for 11 kills and only one error. Utilizing the middle blockers was part of tonight’s game plan as they’ve collectively had a good stretch of games as of late.

“We wanted to get our middles and middle attackers more involved in our offense, and also reverse the play when we had the opportunity,” Ganesharatnam said.

Published on November 8, 2024 at 10:36 pm

Contact Aidan: aidan.tseng@gmail.com