Volleyball Faces Ga. Tech Tonight

But the end of one streak merely gives the No. 13 Tar Heels the chance to start anew -- and with the perfect opponent coming up today in No. 23 Georgia Tech.

"It's a great time, coming after a loss, to come into such a great big match like this," said UNC middle hitter Holly Strauss.

Because the Tar Heels finally dropped an ACC match, Friday's game takes on new ramifications for the conference.

"If we win the match, we have a chance to have a two-match lead over them and the tiebreaker, so it means a lot," said UNC coach Joe Sagula. "It's anybody's conference right now. I'm glad we're where we are, I think we're challenging."

And the Tar Heels will be challenged.

UNC will be facing stiff competition in its first ranked opponent since facing the Yellow Jackets in Atlanta earlier this month. The Tar Heels rallied from a 2-1 deficit to win that match in five games.

However, outside hitter Molly Pyles believes the Tar Heels may have been anticipating Friday's game too much.

"Unfortunately, I think we sort of looked past Florida State because we had been looking forward to the Georgia Tech match for a while," she said. "Ever since the last meeting, there's been a few skeptics on who the better team is, and we are really excited about doing that on Friday."

UNC has received strong play of late from outside hitter Laura Greene and middle hitter Aletha Green.

Greene, who has recorded double-digit kills in 16 matches this season, led the team with 21 kills and 16 digs against Florida State. Green has had either the most or second most kills in UNC's last three games. She was one of few players to not play sloppily against the 'Noles, posting 13 kills on 24 attempts and only committing three errors for an attack percentage of .458.

But North Carolina will need contributions from more than just two players to beat Georgia Tech. Sagula is searching for consistency and diversity in his team's offense.

"We need to create more balance in our offense," he said. "We can't go just to our outsides. We need to go to our middles, have a good distribution between our outsides, our middles and we need to utilize our back-row attack more."

Outside hitter Lynette Moster, who is 10th in the nation with 5.41 kills per game, leads a powerful Georgia Tech offense that ranks in the top 20 in kills per game, attack percentage and assists per game.

But Yellow Jackets coach Bond Shymansky says another one of his players may control his team's play.

"One of the keys for us is Lauren Sauer," he said. "If our outside hitter Lauren Sauer has a good match, she's a lot to handle for any team. We've seen that game in and game out. But if she plays flat, then we have trouble, so that's kind of an important key for us."

Shymansky also has a healthy respect for the entire Tar Heels roster.

"They don't really have a standout, stand-alone, like they did last year in Nicole Reis, so it makes it a little bit harder, actually, because you have to focus on everybody," he said. "There's not a player on their team where we look at them and say, 'Ah, we can just leave them alone, we don't have to pay attention to them.' We have to pay attention to all of them."

But don't think for a second that the Tar Heels are ready to suffer their second letdown in as many games.

"Georgia Tech's a great team," Strauss said. "They're going to come out, they're going to come out strong. They're going to be determined to beat us, especially in our home gym. I feel like we want to beat them just as bad.

"It's going to be a great match, there's no doubt about that."

The Sports Editor can be reached at sports@unc.edu.