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University of North Carolina Athletics
North Carolina
Virginia
Tar Heels Sweep Cavaliers
October 14, 2011 | Volleyball
Oct. 14, 2011
| Sagula Postgame Podcast (mp3) | Season Statistics | Vote Gibson for Lowe's Senior CLASS Award
CHAPEL HILL, N.C.--North Carolina won for the tenth time in its last 11 matches, sweeping Virginia, 3-0 (25-21, 25-23, 25-20) before 10,195 fans at the Dean E. Smith Center. The Tar Heels improve to 16-4, 8-1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
"Our main focus for most matches is to be really good serving and passing," said head coach Joe Sagula. "And our serving was really good I thought. We had five aces to only two errors. It is very rare that we have more aces than errors. The second focus was we knew Virginia had a go-to player in [Jessica] O'Shoney, she only had seven kills, and [Simone] Asque, and she had ten kills but also six errors. So I thought we did a good job containing them."
Emily McGee unleashed a kill off an assist from Erica Behm to propel the Tar Heels to an early four-point lead (7-3) in the opening set. Virginia battled back to close the deficit to two (11-9) on an Emily Rottman kill. UNC countered by winning eight of the next nine points, opening up a seven-point advantage (19-12), capped by a kill from Tia Gaffen. Carolina captured set point (25-21) on a kill by junior Kayla Berringer, assisted by senior Aleksandra Georgieva. Redshirt freshman Chaniel Nelsonposted five kills on five swings and no errors for a perfect first frame.
The Tar Heels again grabbed the early lead in set two, but the Cavaliers again came back and evened the score (7-7) on a ball-handling error by Emily McGee. Virginia then went on a 6-2 run en route to its largest lead of the match at 13-9. McGee and Berringer each tallied a kill to answer and the Cavaliers committed back-to-back errors to allow UNC to tie the score again (14-14). Carolina took control of the match from there, going up by as much as four (22-18), before closing out set two (25-23) on a kill by Nelson, assisted by Cora Harms.
UNC led throughout the third set after grabbing the early lead (7-3) on another kill from Nelson, this time assisted by Behm. The Tar Heels led by as many as five (14-9) on an attack error by the Cavaliers' Simon Asque before closing out the set (25-20) and match on a kill by Berringer, assisted by Harms.
McGee, Gaffen and Nelson each tallied 10 kills to lead the offense while Kaylie Gibson (21), Kaitlyn Anderson(12) and McGee (10) all recorded double-digit digs for the defense.
McGee has compiled double-doubles in five of the Tar Heels' last six matches. The junior outside hitter from Naperville, Ill., has posted double-digit kills in 17 of Carolina's 20 matches.
The Tar Heels return to action Wednesday, Oct. 19, in a nationally televised contest at rival Duke on ESPNU at 6 p.m. The match against the Blue Devils will mark Carolina volleyball's first appearance on the ESPN family of networks.
"Our goal for the Duke match is we want as many Tar Heel fans in Durham as there are Duke fans," said Sagula. "And there is no reason we can't do that. I hope that there are 5,000 people there and that there are 2,500 Carolina fans and 2,500 fans for Duke. And that the better team comes out on top. I have a lot of confidence in our team and in the level that we are playing at right now, that we can go on the road and be successful."
