The UNC volleyball team (21-9) fell to the Tennessee Volunteers (20-9) in four sets in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday.
What happened?
The Tar Heels fell early in the first and second sets, facing serve receive trouble and failing to get offensive production going to stack anything more than one four-point run. UNC fell behind in almost every statistic, trailing Tennessee 8-3 in blocks and giving up seven points to service errors. Even outside hitters, graduate Nia Robinson and first-year Mabrey Shaffmaster, could not connect for a kill, and often lost jousts at the front net. These mistakes cost UNC the first two sets, 25-20 and 25-19, respectively.
In the third, the UNC offense began to settle and took its first lead in two sets with a Vol attack error, 9-8. Junior middle blocker Skyy Howard, Robinson and Shaffmaster added onto the Tar Heel kill tally to maintain North Carolina’s lead until the Vols tied the game at 21. The Tar Heels then rallied above 25 and secured two points in a row off a Shaffmaster kill and a junior outside hitter Parker Austin service ace to notch the Tar Heel win, 26-24.
North Carolina began the fourth set with the same stagnant momentum as the first two, dropping six of the first seven point opportunities and quickly falling back to their biggest deficit of the night, 10-2. Despite the slow start, UNC remained alive and closed the gap to 15-18, after which Tennessee scored seven more unanswered points. The Vols’ match point was scored by Ava Bell, who spent her first year at North Carolina before transferring to Tennessee for her remaining three years of eligibility and was the third highest-scorer on her team for the game.
UNC dropped the first round of the NCAA tournament, 3-1.
Who stood out?
Shaffmaster, Robinson, Howard and sophomore outside hitter Kaya Merkler all scored double digits on the evening. Shaffmaster, recently named ACC Freshman of the Year, led the team with 18 kills.
