Tar Heels host Carolina Classic volleyball tournament

North Carolina has only one blemish on this season’s record. The lone loss came on Aug. 24 at the hands of the Southeastern Conference’s Kentucky Wildcats.

The Tar Heels (5-1) will take a second swing at the SEC tonight in their home opener against LSU.

“We have a lot of respect for the SEC,” coach Joe Sagula said. “When you play a team from that conference, you know you’re going to play a good team.”

UNC will also welcome Middle Tennessee State and Western Michigan to Carmichael Arena for this weekend’s Carolina Classic tournament.

“Their conferences are not ranked as high across the board,” Sagula said. “But likely, Middle Tennessee will win their conference and Western Michigan will compete for their championship.

“To beat teams that finish well in their conferences is important. They may be contending for an NCAA berth later on, so if we can compete well with them it will help us.”

But the team does not discuss those postseason goals once the regular season starts.

For now, the focus is on the non-conference matchups.

“Our attitude is this — we only play these teams once, we’ve got to go out and just play our best against them,” Sagula said.

“There’s no, ‘OK, we’ll get them next time.’”

North Carolina is excited to play this weekend, especially after a dominating 3-0 sweep at last weekend’s Aggie Invitational.

UNC beat Santa Clara (3-2), Utah (3-0) and UC-Davis (3-0), but the victories came in a multitude of ways that reflected both strengths and weaknesses.

“It’s always nice figuring out things you need to learn while winning,” senior Emily McGee said. “I think it’s going to be exciting to make those tweaks while we’re on a good swing of momentum so we can put those things to practice and play even better at home.”

The Tar Heels got helpful performances from every position on the court and will look to duplicate that success at home this weekend.

Sagula said he believes it will take that well-rounded team effort to claim the Carolina Classic.

“We want to start the season undefeated at Carmichael,” he said.
The team not only hopes to start the season undefeated at home, but to claim wins in every game in its home state this year.

“We made a team goal that we don’t want to lose in Carmichael, or even in North Carolina this year,” junior Kaitlyn Anderson said. “So we’re going to come out of our locker room really excited to play.”

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