Leigh Andrew pushes UNC volleyball past Miami

Missing its head coach and facing a Miami Hurricanes team on a rampage, the No. 9 North Carolina volleyball team needed someone to serve as its facilitator on Friday night at Carmichael Arena.

And in the Tar Heels’ 3-0 sweep (25-21, 25-12, 25-22), it was junior outside hitter Leigh Andrew who filled this role — stuffing the stat sheet with 15 kills, nine digs, three block assists and a team-leading 16.5 points — and enabled UNC to blow past the Hurricanes.

With UNC (18-2, 9-1 ACC) up 2-1 in the first set, Andrew waltzed back to the service line and prepared to serve. She tossed the ball high in the air, made her approach, elevated and made contact with the ball — too much to be exact. The ball sailed long — accounting for one of her three service errors on the night.

But while Andrew’s early blunder and struggles at the service line throughout the night could have shook her confidence, she said she wasn’t going to let it affect her.

“I really didn’t let that bother me,” Andrew said. “I knew I was serving tough and going after it.”

The outside hitter bounced back from the early service error and found a way to contribute in every other phase of the game — whether it was passing, distributing the ball to her teammates or registering points of her own.

With the Tar Heels up 24-21 in the first set, Andrew — from her middle back position in the back row — received the serve from Miami’s (14-7, 7-3 ACC) All-ACC performer Savanah Leaf.

Arms extended and nearly in perfect passing form, Andrew bumped the ball over to awaiting sophomore setter Abigail Curry, who set the ball across the floor to senior outside hitter Lauren McAdoo for an obliterating kill that sealed the set for UNC.

Andrew then proceeded to make her presence known throughout the second set — specifically at its conclusion.

With the Tar Heels leading 18-10, Andrew reeled off back-to-back kills — capitalized by a booming spike that ricocheted off the head of the Miami blocker to conclude possibly the longest rally of the night. The 10-point lead Andrew gave UNC with the kill was its largest of the night.

Andrew’s strong performance to end the second set carried over into the third set, as she tallied three of UNC’s first six points. The third of these points came when Andrew set the ball over the net from the back row and landed it in the middle of Miami’s side of the floor without a defender anywhere close by to retrieve it.

The point contrasted greatly from the thunderous kill Andrew had off the head of the Miami blocker in the second set, and she said she was hoping to keep the Miami defense guessing.

“I think just mixing up the shots and getting them out of rhythm, swinging deep and then tipping short — it just throws them off a little bit,” Andrew said.

Andrew continued to terrorize the Miami defense for the remainder of the match, switching back and forth between swinging with all of her might and dinking the ball over the net.

When the set ended, Andrew had tallied eight kills in the final set en route to sealing the win over the Hurricanes — winners of five straight ACC contests entering Friday.

Junior middle blocker Paige Neuenfeldt, wearing the same purple headband as her teammate, said the Miami defense couldn’t stop Andrew from scoring points.

“Leigh played great,” Neuenfeldt said. “She had so many awesome shots, and she was just tearing apart their defense.”

Assistant head coach Eve Rackham — filling in for Coach Joe Sagula, who was forced to sit out Friday’s game after being disqualified against Georgia Tech on Oct. 26 — said the performances by Andrew and McAdoo were the best she has seen from the tandem of outside hitters in recent weeks.

Rackham said that Andrew’s ability to contribute to the team in multiple phases of the game — like she did against the Hurricanes — makes her a reliable asset for the Tar Heels.

“She can really do everything for us,” she said. “She passes half of the court. She’s back there playing middle back defense and taking back row swings, taking front row swings. She’s one of our best blockers. She does so much for us that sometimes I think she is even undervalued, because of just the shear amount of swings she has to take and the responsibility she’s got every match.”

And on Friday, Andrew took hold of that responsibility and led UNC to victory.

sports@dailytarheel.com