Second place start for women's volleyball

The North Carolina women’s volleyball team opened its season with a second place finish in a field of four teams at the 2010 Carolina Classic tournament this weekend.

The Tar Heels faced teams of varying caliber — from defending national champion Penn State to Atlantic Sun Conference quarterfinalist Campbell — on its way to a 2-1 finish in the tournament.

North Carolina started off the weekend with a 3-0 (25-19, 25-21, 25-16) loss to Penn State, which was riding on a 102-game winning streak coming into the tournament.

Penn State needed only 78 minutes to finish off the Tar Heels and continue its winning streak to 103. 6-foot-5-inch senior Blair Brown, a 2009 unanimous first-team All-Big Ten player, led the Nittany Lions with nine kills in a decisive victory that highlighted Penn State’s unmistakable height advantage over North Carolina (2-1).

Offensively, the Tar Heels struggled mightily to break through the Nittany Lions’ towering blocking front and sure-handed backcourt.

“They have the best libero in the country, so I’m trying not to hit down the line, but they’re blocking and taking away the right back,” senior Courtney Johnston said.

The depth of the Penn State defense gave UNC problems throughout the match, holding North Carolina to only 32 kills on 128 attempts, while also forcing the Tar Heels to commit 30 errors.

“Penn State did a great job at keeping the ball in play,” said junior outside hitter Emily McGee. “We kept trying to be aggressive, and of course when being extra aggressive while playing a great defensive team, you’re going to have extra errors.”

On defense, UNC was able to hold its own through the first two games, recording 36 digs and nine block assists. But the height of Penn State was too much for North Carolina in the third game, where the Tar Heels recorded only 15 digs and two block assists.

“They’ve got 6-foot-4 players; they’re bigger than every team here,” Coach Joe Sagula said. “It’s hard to put a ball down on them.”

Despite the tall order delivered at the hands of Penn State, North Carolina recovered to easily defeat Campbell (25-15, 25-14, 25-20) and Villanova (25-19, 25-16, 25-17) in back-to-back straight set victories Saturday.

Johnston led the Tar Heels with 25 kills and four block assists over the two games, and junior Kaylie Gibson led UNC defensively with 31 digs.

The resilient defensive play of Gibson and the rest of the team’s backcourt allowed the ?Tar Heels to extend rallies and set up preseason All-ACC selection Johnston to use her height and powerful swing to finish points.

“I thought Campbell was scrappy, I thought Villanova was scrappy, which made for some long rallies,” Sagula said. “I think the difference was that we won a couple more long rallies than the other teams.”

The strong serving performance, led by Erica Behm’s two aces in the match against Campbell, gave the Tar Heels offensive control to string together multiple-point rallies.

“We had very few one-and-done sequences,” Sagula said. “We needed certain people to give us two, three, four, five (serves) in a row, and that happened.”

Though Sagula said North Carolina turned in an encouraging weekend performance, the Tar Heels didn’t escape the weekend unscathed. Sophomore Meg Yanda went down in the first game of the Villanova match with a knee injury that Sagula said looked season ending.

Sagula said the team will know the extent of Yanda’s injury later this week.

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