This weekend the NC State volleyball team took on two in-state foes on Saturday and Sunday. It split the matchups, beating the Campbell Camels 3-1 and losing to the UNC-Wilmington Seahawks 3-1.
After the first set against Campbell (4-9), junior Kaitlyn Kearney caught fire and finished with a hitting percentage of 53.3. The team followed suit by posting a 24.7 hitting percentage. The UNCW (10-2) matchup told a much different story. Of NC State’s 167 total swings, 37 were errors. This of course drug down the team’s hitting percentage.
“I think it comes down to serving and passing,” senior libero Rachel Eppley said. “And we didn’t pass well so we couldn’t get our offense up to tempo.”
Against Campbell, the Pack got off to a much slower start than expected. It sleepwalked through the first set as the Camels took it 25-18. After that, NC State woke up and took the next three sets. It won those sets by a combined score of 75-52. Additionally, less than one-tenth of the players’ swings resulted in errors.
Against the Seahawks, it was the same story except NC State found itself on the losing end of it. After last game, starting fast was a major point of emphasis.
“We accomplished our goal of being first to five [points] in each set,” NC State head coach Linda Hampton-Keith said.
The Pack got off to an excellent start and took the first set 25-22. However, errors and an inability to quickly get into its offense was ultimately its undoing. Over the last three sets, State averaged a smidge over 10 errors per set. Even through the loss, the team showed flashes of championship-caliber grit.
During the final set of the match, the Seahawks had a comfortable 15-8 lead. This was an opportunity for this team to pack it in and focus forward to its upcoming conference play opener against its fiercest rival UNC-Chapel Hill. State instead battled back to reach a 20-20 tie. The team lost this set, but the value of that type of team-wide resilience cannot be overstated. This never-quit attitude is something that Hampton-Keith has been instilling in her players since her arrival in Raleigh.
“The whole preseason Linda’s really been harping on the game’s not over until it’s over and we saw that we had plenty of time to come back,” Eppley said. “We all just realized that we could still win this and that we were still in it.”
The Wolfpack will start off conference play in Reynolds Coliseum against UNC Thursday. This will be Hampton-Keith’s first time being a part of this rivalry, and she is fired up about it.
“This’ll be my first time experiencing that environment and playing that team,” Hampton-Keith said. “We’re really excited to get going with conference and see where we stand. It’s going to be a really fun conference season and what better way to start it than with your rivals at home.”
The Wolfpack celebrates a point against UNC-Wilmington on Sept. 18 in Reynolds Coliseum. While the Pack out-killed the Seahawks 58-43, they had many errors that resulted in a 3-1 loss.
