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Post by bvolley17 on Sept 15, 2024 14:16:24 GMT -5
Heels win a very tight third set 25-23 to take a 2-1 lead. Mabrey with a ridiculous wrist-away sharp sharp sharp sharp angle shot to take the last point.
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Post by bvolley17 on Sept 15, 2024 14:53:23 GMT -5
Heels pick up their best win of the season, taking the third set 25-22 and the match 3-1 on the road in the Little Apple. We were up 18-11 and this team just let up again and made the last points more interesting than it should have been.
We went away from setting the middle in the fourth, which I would have liked to not gone away from, but all-in-all a good win. Still have to work on tip defense when Mabrey is in the front row.
Foster had a great blocking day on the right side, accumulating 9 blocks. Taylor had 10 blocks. Mabrey and Safi with double-doubles... big thing I saw today setting the middle is that the setters are getting a little (just a little) better at holding the middles to them a bit longer. Would love to see that continue to get better as we go as our outsides got quite a few easy looks.
This lineup with Foster on the right and Hampton on the left may be the way to go. It takes Foster out of serve receive and she's got ups on the block. The offense on the right side for Foster is awkward. When we're in system she can get a good swing off on the right, but when we're in transition or the set is off it's clearly a struggle. It's a work in progress.
Bohlinger was dressed in street clothes along with Yardimci. Hope their injuries aren't too serious.
On to the next week.
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Post by bvolley17 on Sept 15, 2024 17:25:54 GMT -5
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Post by bvolley17 on Sept 15, 2024 19:01:39 GMT -5
Mabrey (MVP), Safi, and Maddie named to the All-Tournament Team.
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Post by volleyheels10 on Sept 16, 2024 7:12:40 GMT -5
This was a really good weekend for UNC Volleyball....
This is not the type of weekend we would walk away from 2-0 a year ago or the last few years. Lipscomb is a NCAA team almost every year and it is very difficult to play at KSU. KSU should have been in the tournament last year and beat Texas and BYU at thier place. KSU may be 2-5 but they have played a majority of games against ranked opponents. They will be above .500 IO as Big 12 play is in swing.
Two really good wins that could help our RPI come December.
Hoping we get the RS consistently going as well as the middles and we will see this team continue to get better. I think overall, May looks improved this year.
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Post by dinonugs on Sept 16, 2024 8:09:11 GMT -5
Tarheels look much improved so far this year! Keep it up and cause some chaos in the ACC  |
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Post by bvolley17 on Sept 16, 2024 9:13:05 GMT -5
This was a really good weekend for UNC Volleyball.... This is not the type of weekend we would walk away from 2-0 a year ago or the last few years. Lipscomb is a NCAA team almost every year and it is very difficult to play at KSU. KSU should have been in the tournament last year and beat Texas and BYU at thier place. KSU may be 2-5 but they have played a majority of games against ranked opponents. They will be above .500 IO as Big 12 play is in swing. Two really good wins that could help our RPI come December. Hoping we get the RS consistently going as well as the middles and we will see this team continue to get better. I think overall, May looks improved this year. K-State has lost 3-1 to No. 8 Purdue and No. 20 USC, and 3-0 to No. 11 Creighton. And a 2-3 loss to UC Davis (We know how that one feels). K-State was picked to finish 7th in the Big 12 this year... their RS Meg Brown was an All-American at Pepperdine and they have a 6-6 middle. They're a solid team. |
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Post by bvolley17 on Sept 17, 2024 11:19:35 GMT -5
I think we have a pretty significant weekend coming up for this team. If this team can win both matches against Michigan and Michigan State, I think we'll see a significant jump in "belief" in themselves heading into ACC play. I think it's been hard in recent years to have a lot of confidence heading into conference play with some bad losses early in the season. Two wins would put us a 8-1 heading into ACC play. We didn't play anyone super challenging and had a(n arguably bad) loss to South Carolina, but given our recent run of less than ideal results in the past few years, it's good to slowly build some confidence.
In my opinion, it has felt like our teams haven't felt like they were competing for a spot in the postseason the last few years, so the focus and buy-in just hasn't been there. If we can beat two Big 10 teams (at home!) and go into conference play with just one loss, I am hopeful this team will begin to believe in itself and push for a run to the postseason. We just have to incrementally get better every day and not let things completely take us out of games.
Passing has been a little bit better. It's not great, but at least it's showing improvement. Blocking has been inconsistent, but was stronger this past weekend. Spreading the offense has slowly been happening. Little things getting gradually better... just have to keep it going through the end of the season.
We have to get much better on middle back defense (hopefully Bohlinger will be back soon) and tip coverage when Mabrey is in the front row. I think Mabrey cheats away too much because she's not super quick in transition from that spot. Safi picks up those tips really well, but she is more athletic and quicker. And we have to continue to serve hard so that our block can be more effective.
All-in-all, if we can keep spreading the offense around like we did against K-State and get some more one-on-ones, I have hope that we can push for spot in the postseason. I don't think we'll sniff top 5 in the league this year, but maybe we can sneak into the postseason.
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Post by bvolley17 on Sept 18, 2024 14:20:45 GMT -5
Massey ratings currently have the Heels at No. 35. Other ACC programs ahead of us: Notre Dame (34), FSU (25), SMU (24), Miami (23), Georgia Tech (13), Louisville (4), Pitt (2), and Stanford (1). So right on the cusp of maybe getting an at-large... as of now.
This weekend's opponents: Michigan (31) and Michigan State (68).
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Post by volleyheels10 on Sept 20, 2024 9:30:38 GMT -5
We need to take each match at a time....but a weekend sweep would boost this team tremendously.....hate to say it...but if Yardimici is healthy and can return I am not sure she starts over Foster....Foster is blocking a storm on the right side and you can tell when she is in system she can smach balls on the RS....if more consistent Peyman shows up then its a toss up but early showing she hasnt been as offensive...
Lets beat Michigan first!
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Post by bvolley17 on Sept 20, 2024 14:11:04 GMT -5
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Post by bvolley17 on Sept 20, 2024 19:55:35 GMT -5
Our RS has been horrible tonight. Really bad. Up 2-1 but trailing in the fourth 9-14…
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Post by bvolley17 on Sept 20, 2024 20:35:58 GMT -5
Heel win 3-2 and give Michigan its first loss of the season! Our girls got a bit complacent in set four and Michigan ran away with it. Michigan kept the momentum for the early parts of the fifth but the team really fought in the fifth with some scrappy defense to close it out. Unfortunately, our right side attack was really bad tonight. They collectively hit about -.120... so we became the same team as last year by only setting our outsides. Thankfully, Safi had a career-high 22 kills and Mabrey had 21. Safi was destroying some balls and jumping nearly out of orbit tonight. Wow. Once we stopped setting the right side we started getting blocked a bit.
Alexis is starting to look really comfortable and very good. She had 8 kills tonight and hopefully we continue to set her a lot. Jackie wasn't much of a factor tonight but did not play poorly. They served at Safi all. night. long. And she handled it OK, only having two receiving errors, but she has room to grow for sure. The turning point in the fifth was when Safi and Jackie finally started getting touches and a block on Michigan's sophomore Valentia Vaulet, who had 22 kills. Only one other player for Michigan had double-digit kills.
7-1. Happy to get the win and hopefully we can get more positive production from the right side so we can continue to spread the love.
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Post by bvolley17 on Sept 20, 2024 21:54:14 GMT -5
Buried the lead a bit… we were trailing 8-10 in the fifth and ran off 7 straight points to end the game.
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Post by bvolley17 on Sept 22, 2024 14:16:01 GMT -5
Heels win 3-1! We are now 8-1 and will start conference play next week at home against Syracuse and BC.
Our Right Sides really stepped up after last match... Emani' hit .467 with 15 kills and Chelsea had 9 kills. Safi and Mabrey both finished with double-doubles and Jackie had 5 kills and Engelbrecht had 3.
Second set our girls came out really complacent again - not a lot of focus, and MSU took that set. But they settled and fought through a tough S3 to win 25-23 and then pretty much had a two-to-four point lead throughout the final set.
One of my biggest takeaways this season is seeing some actual adjustments mid-match. We were getting beaten on MSU's backrow attack in the corners, but we finally adjusted to it and got some really good digs on those later in the match. We have to get better on setting out of system... if Zoe tries to bump set behind her to the net while she's running off one foot I think I'm going to go crazy haha... May tries to play hero ball sometimes when setting... we're running a 6-2, so we should always be able to bump set people in front of us... but sometimes we try to make an amazing play and it doesn't work. I'd love for that to get better.
Also love that Mike has gone to Erin for the serving sub after Carson continues to not give us anything off the bench.
Still have a ton of room to grow, but I think this is a pretty great start to the season. Not sure many of us were sure we'd only have one loss. I'm liking the growth I'm seeing but hopefully it'll continue.
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