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Volleyball Loses Heartbreaker to Florida State, 3-2
10/9/2011 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Oct. 9, 2011
RALEIGH, N.C. – For NC State volleyball, playing five-set matches is becoming second nature.
The Wolfpack played a school-record fifth consecutive match that went the distance, taking No. 24 Florida State to the wire (25-23, 22-25, 24-26, 25-17, 13-15) Sunday afternoon at Reynolds Coliseum, in the first televised game in Wolfpack volleyball history.
The Wolfpack opened with a quick lead to take the first set, endured two close Seminole wins and then rallied to win big in the fourth set. But the Seminoles (13-4 overall, 7-0 ACC) remained undefeated in league play by finishing strong, taking a 14-11 lead at the end of the decisive fifth set and getting the win with a block at the net.
“It’s great to be competitive,” said second-year NC State coach Bryan Bunn. “But this is our fifth straight five-set match. We are a young team, but we need to learn to win those.”
The Wolfpack (14-6, 2-4) received strong play from freshmen Nicole Glass and Dariyan Hopper. Glass had 19 kills and 22.5 points in the contest, while adding 11 digs and three blocks. Hopper had a career-high 16 kills, 16.5 points and a .250 hitting average.
Senior middle blocker Margaret Salata added another double-digit scoring day, with 10 kills, eight blocks and 14.5 points. The Wolfpack got strong contributions from 6-foot-3 sophomore Meredith Richardson, beginning with the pre-match national anthem and continuing in the second set, when she joined Salata on the front line to give the Wolfpack defense a little more height.
In the end, however, Florida State’s size advantage won the exceedingly tight match, which featured 49 ties and 25 lead changes. The Seminoles had a total of 26 blocks to the Wolfpack’s 13.5.
The Wolfpack started out the opening set with a 6-2 lead, scoring five straight points to force a Seminole timeout. State scored two of the next three points to go ahead 8-3 against the nationally ranked Seminoles.
FSU came back to take the lead and owned a 23-22 advantage, forcing Bunn to call timeout. The Pack came back with two straight points by Hopper to take the lead, followed by a Florida State smash that landed out of bounds to give State the winning point, 25-23.
Hopper had five of her 16 kills in the opening set.
The Pack came out with equal intensity in the second set, grabbing a quick lead and playing point-for-point with the Seminoles through the middle of the game. The Wolfpack changed some of its rotations to add more height to its lineup, substituting Richardson for sophomore Brie Merriwether at middle blocker.
Blocking at the net allowed the Wolfpack to take a 19-16 lead, but the Seminoles ended the set with a 7-1 run to tie the match at 1-1.
Florida State squeaked out a 26-24 in the third set to take a 2-1 lead, but the Wolfpack answered with a different rotation in the fourth set, inserting both Richardson and freshman Rachel Buckley into the starting lineup.
State built a 12-6 lead early on, the biggest advantage by either team in the match.
Florida State reeled off five straight points, but the Pack maintained momentum, thanks to the continued strong play by senior librero Kelly Wood, who had a season-high 25 digs in the match. In the set, the Wolfpack posted a .231 hitting average to Florida State’s .077, while cruising to a 25-17 win.
In the fifth set, the Seminoles had seven blocks at the net, while hitting at a blazing .500 clip. The Wolfpack did not have a block in the fifth set.
“We made some tentative swings in the fifth set,” Bunn said. “If you swing tentatively like that, they will get some blocks at the net and that was the difference in the match.”
The Wolfpack returns home on Friday, hosting Virginia Tech in a 7 p.m. match at Reynolds Coliseum. On Saturday, State hosts Virginia, also at 7 p.m. in Reynolds. Both will be streamed live on GoPack.com/All-Access.
“These are important matches because they are against ACC opponents at home,” said Bunn, whose team has lost four consecutive close matches against ACC opponents, two of which were ranked nationally. “We have to take advantage of that opportunity.”
