The NC State volleyball team fell to the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers 4-1 in the team’s opening exhibition match on Saturday, August 21 at Reynolds Coliseum.
The Wolfpack won the second set against the Chanticleers, who finished with an 18-1 record in 2020 and a perfect 16-0 record in the Sun Belt.
“We didn’t play the way we wanted to play,” said head coach Luka Slabe. “We also understand that we’ve spent very little time with this group together… The positive thing is that we played all available players, all healthy players, so they all got reps… Now we know where we are, and there’s a lot of work ahead of us.”
The Pack looked like it was in control to start the match, going up 15-10 before the Chants went on a 9-2 run to take the lead 19-17. The Pack tied it back up 20-20, but the Chanticleers closed out the set by winning five of the next seven points to take a 1-0 match lead.
It was the opposite in the second set as the Chants were winning the entire set, up 21-17 before the Pack came storming back. NC State went on a 6-1 run to take a 23-22 lead before winning three of the next five points to take the set 26-24, tying the match 1-1.
“There’s a lot of learning in this, granted it is our very first game of the year,” said graduate opposite hitter Melissa Evans. “We do have a lot of young people, we just have to work together and get through it.”
The Chants were in control from start to finish in the third set and led by as many as nine. Down to its last point in the set, the Pack scored four straight to make the score 24-20, but the Chants finished it off 25-20 to take a 2-1 match lead.
The Chants were once again in control all the way through the fourth set, winning 25-19 and clinching the match with their third set win.
With the match decided, the two teams played a fifth set. The set was back and forth throughout, and the Pack was up 24-21 with a chance to clinch the set, but the Chants won the next five points to take the set 26-24 and sealed the final score at 4-1.
“I think it’s always good to be challenged. We want to be challenged,” Slabe said. “I wish we would have pushed back more today and challenged Coastal. We didn’t do that.”
This match did not count towards the regular season, but nonetheless it may have benefitted the Pack to start the season off with a challenge.
“The ACC is not gonna get any easier,” Evans said. “Our schedule is not gonna get any easier, so it’s better to start off with a harder team and troubleshoot right now.”
The Pack officially starts the regular season this upcoming weekend when it travels to Knoxville, Tennessee, taking on East Tennessee State on Friday, August 27 at 4 p.m., followed by a doubleheader on Saturday, August 28 against Texas Tech at 10 a.m. and Tennessee at 6:30 p.m.
