The No. 10 North Carolina volleyball team’s historic 15-game win streak came to a startling halt Friday when unranked Duke handed UNC its first loss of the season.
The loss, in front of a record crowd of 5,322 fans, was the first home loss for the Tar Heels since 2011.
Duke swept the matchup, winning each of the sets by at least three points, and throughout all three sets, UNC never led by more than three points. Still, coach Joe Sagula said, his team had its opportunities to gain momentum.
“I really thought we had our chances in the first two sets when it was close, 15-14 both games, I thought we had a good chance to do some things,” he said.
“(But) we never made strong points or runs at that point to establish ourselves.”
The first and second sets were nearly mirror images of each other. In both, the Tar Heels opened with a 13-10 lead, but Duke went on a 7-2 run and then a 7-1 run to win each set 22-25 .
In the third and final set — despite trailing early 5-8 — Duke stormed back to take a 15-12 advantage and 25-19 set victory.
“Our energy just wasn’t where it needed to be to keep competing,” sophomore middle blocker Paige Neuenfeldt said. . “The end of the third game was definitely a big lull.”
Against Duke, graduate student Jovana Bjelica led UNC with 10 kills and sophomore setter Jordyn Schnabl tallied a team high 17 assists. As a team, UNC totaled 28 attack errors — twice as many as Duke’s 14.
Sagula emphasized that the keys to rebounding from the loss were mental and had to be handled with maturity.