NC State Volleyball Turns Away Virginia with 3-1 Win

Friday, October 12

Raleigh, N.C.

6 P.M.

NC State

9-8, 3-4ACC

Virginia

5-12, 1-6ACC

Virginia

NC State

Photo by: Jaylynn Nash

NC State Volleyball Turns Away Virginia with 3-1 Win

10/12/2018 10:24:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score Box Score

Head Coach Linda Hampton-Keith earns 50th career victory

RALEIGH, N.C. – For the third consecutive season, the NC State volleyball team won its annual pink match as the Wolfpack stormed back to defeat Virginia, 3-1 (19-25, 25-19, 25-19, 16-25), Friday night inside Reynolds Coliseum.

After dropping the first set, the Pack countered with three dominant sets, tallying a team attacking percentage better than .300 in each set, to earn the victory. Third-year head coach Linda Hampton-Keith recorded her 50^thcareer win in the match and is a perfect 3-0 against the Cavaliers in her tenure.

NC State moves to 9-8 on the year and 3-4 in ACC play, while Virginia falls to 5-12 and 1-6 in conference action.

Quoting Hampton-Keith
Overall thoughts...
"I thought we started slow and then did really, really well," said Hampton-Keith. "We were talking after the match and we had fewer attacking errors in sets two, three and four combined then we did in the first set alone.

"I was really, really proud of how we came back and started playing much better. Even going into set four, we still hadn't played our best volleyball and we did a really nice job of executing."

Match Rewind
- Virginia opened the match with a strong first set, as the Cavaliers pulled ahead early and held on for the 25-19 win.
- In the second set, Melissa Evans and Teni Sopitan helped NC State answer to even the match at one, as Evans tallied five kills and Sopitan put down six.
- Virginia grabbed a 15-14 lead after an NC State error, but the Wolfpack countered with four consecutive points to force a timeout by the Cavs at 18-15.
- A block by Kylie Pickrell and Lauryn Terry sparked a 6-1 run as NC State extended the lead to 24-17 and Keira Moore capped the set with a kill from the middle, 25-19.
- NC State opened the third set strong, as the squad raced out to a 10-6 advantage following a kill from Evans.
- Pickrell charted a kill to push the Pack's lead to 20-14 forcing Virginia to use its second timeout and Evans later ended the set with a kill.
- The Wolfpack logged its highest team attacking percentage in the third set with a .375 clip and recorded an 89 percent sideout, scoring on 17-19 Virginia serves.
- Virginia started the fourth set with a 5-2 run, but NC State countered five points to take a 7-5 lead.
- A 9-2 run extended the Pack's advantage to 17-8, as NCSU won 15 of the next 18 points after trailing 5-2.
- After the Cavaliers rallied to tighten the set, Pickrell tallied a solo block to give NC State a 25-16 fourth-set win and 3-1 victory in the match.

Top Performers
- Sopitan led all players in the match with 15 kills, while Evans finished right behind her with 14.
- Pickrell tallied a match-high 50 assists to go along with 14 digs, narrowly missing a triple double as she put down eight kills with a .571 attacking percentage.
- Defensively, Makenzie Kuchmaner collected 19 digs and Jade Parchment contributed 18.

Up Next
NC State will return to action Sunday afternoon when unbeaten Pittsburgh visits Reynolds Coliseum. The Panthers are one of just two undefeated teams in the nation. First serve is set for 1 p.m.