Coach Charita Stubbs stood with her arms crossed and let out a long sigh, looking onto the Reynolds Coliseum court Tuesday as her volleyball team (2-23 overall, 0-16 ACC) dropped its 28th consecutive conference match, this one at the hands of North Carolina (7-18, 5-11 ) by a 3-0 score.
N.C. State dropped the first game 30-18 in part because of 14 attack errors compared with only nine kills.
In the second game, the Wolfpack had 11 kills and reduced its number of attack errors to six. But the effort was not enough for the win, though, as the Tar Heels boasted a .333 hitting percentage in the second game.
In the final game, according to Stubbs, unforced errors plagued State’s chances of winning its first conference match of the year.
“We had four people hitting negative,” Stubbs said. “Let’s see. We had six ball-handling errors, which is not a good sign. We had seven receiving errors. Unforced errors — yeah, I’d say they were a problem.”
She also said it came down to a lack of leadership and execution.
“Tonight it was the inability for anyone to perform and step up and put the team on their back. It’s our inability to score points. We’re making way more errors than we are doing anything else comfortably,” Stubbs said. “And when our passing breaks down, then we are not the type of team that know[s] how to execute in that situation.”
Freshman Chrissy Zirpolo led the State attack with 10 kills in the contest, followed by sophomore Jessica Williams, who contributed five.
According to Zirpolo, the Pack felt confident and prepared coming into the match, but did not carry over the excitement of the rivalry when it mattered most.
“We could have played better,” Zirpolo said. “I feel like mentally everyone really wanted it, but I don’t think we carried it over to the court. We made a lot of unforced errors and had a lot of communication errors. If we cut down on those [unforced errors] and play within our system, we’ll be fine.”
Williams echoed Zirpolo’s assessment, adding that a lack of focus accounts for many of the errors the team made.
“We actually worked really hard,” Williams said. “We were prepared. We had a lot of ball shots. I just think hitting errors really hurt us a lot too. Our main problem was hitting errors. We get too relaxed maybe. Then we start panicking and stuff.”
In preparation for two conference games against Georgia Tech and Clemson this weekend in Reynolds, Stubbs said she will continue to do what she has done all year to prepare her team. According to Stubbs, the problem is not in the coaching strategy or scouting, but rather falls on the individual errors.
“We’re gonna pretty much do the same thing we’re doing. We addressed every issue. We addressed the fact everyone needs to be on our page, our page being the coaches’ page, and believing what we’re saying in there. The scouting report proved exactly what they did. Everything they did, we knew it was coming for us,” Stubbs said. “So when you know what’s coming and you don’t execute, I think it boils down to personnel at that point because I don’t think we’re very competitive.”
Zirpolo said she and her teammates know what they need to change and will work to finish the season strong.
“We’ll work on our communicating skills,” Zirpolo said. “We need to play each play like we know how to play and not worry about what other people are doing. Play our game, and then we’ll come together as a team.”
Meanwhile, Stubbs said her team has a lot to change in order to be successful after such a disappointing loss.
“[It’s] very disappointing that we didn’t execute what we said we were going to execute. I don’t think that we’re competitive at all,” Stubbs said. “And I think we’ve found every excuse not to be good.”
