Volleyball: Heels thwart Boston College comeback

After winning the first two sets in convincing fashion, North Carolina appeared to be en route to an easy three-set win against Boston College on Friday night.

While the Tar Heels managed to prevail 3-2, the road to victory was bumpier than anticipated.

UNC looked dominant in the early going, winning the first two sets 25-15 and 25-12. Senior middle hitter Ingrid Hanson-Tuntland, led UNC, recording six kills in the second set.

“Ingrid was on fire, just a major force out there,” coach Joe Sagula said.

The middle hitter was aided by a strong performance from freshman setter Cora Harms, who set a career-high of 64 assists.

“The first and second games, she was getting the ball to Ingrid unbelievably,” Sagula said.

Harms twisted her ankle in the fourth set but remained in the game.

The third set was much more competitive, with the teams trading points throughout. UNC held a 21-18 lead but dropped seven of the next eight points to lose the set 22-25.

“I don’t think we came out in the third game as hard as we could have,” middle hitter Heather Brooks said.

 The fourth set was also tightly contested. UNC made several attacking errors, and the Eagles again came out on top, this time by a score of 25-23.

“We started making outside hitting errors,” said Sagula. “We just started being reckless with our swings, and that’s not good enough.”

Despite allowing the Eagles to tie the game, Brooks said she wasn’t worried about losing to Boston College for the first time in UNC history.

That confidence was evident in her performance. Trailing 8-6 in the deciding game, Brooks put the Tar Heels ahead 11-8 after a dominant five-point stretch in which she tallied two kills and three blocks. UNC held on and won the fifth game 15-13.

“I wasn’t as nervous as I was upset that we lost the fourth game and the third game,” Brooks said.

“I was really determined to win that fifth game just to show them that we’re not going to step back and let them win on our floor.”

While Sagula said he was pleased that his team was able to emerge with the win, he was frustrated that UNC took so long to respond to the improved play of its opponents.

“All of the sudden, they started getting into a rhythm, and we didn’t change enough,” he said.

“We tried to mix it up early, and we did some good things to keep them out of rhythm, but then all of the sudden, they get into a rhythm, and we stopped winning the mental part of the game.”

Though he wasn’t thrilled with how the game ended, Sagula did believe Friday’s match was indicative of what UNC has done well this season, and what it needs to do better in the future.

“We showed every type of our quality and our character this match,” he said. “The character of being dominant, the character of backing off, of not being able to finish, of being able to take great swings.”



Contact the Sports Editor at sports@unc.edu.