The volleyball team was on its way to earning its first conference victory this season on Saturday night before things came unraveled. N.C. State took the first two games of its match against Maryland at Reynolds Coliseum before the Terrapins stormed back to win the final three games and the match.
Coach Charita Stubbs said her team hadn’t played as well as the score may have indicated in the first two games. She said after those initial victories, her players didn’t know how to handle the lead.
“I knew it was going to be tough for the kids to even understand because we’ve never been in that situation,” Stubbs said. “And basically, they just started playing not to lose versus to win.”
She also said part of the difference in the match came in adjustments. “Maryland got better as the match went on,” Stubbs said. “Whereas we stayed the same.”
The Wolfpack came out slowly in the first game, allowing Maryland to jump to a 6-1 lead. But State fought back into the game and went tit-for-tat with the Terrapins through the middle of the game. Then the Pack scored seven of the last eight points to secure a 30-24 game-one victory.
State followed the first game up with another come-from-behind win, 32-30, in the second game after trailing 19-15. The dramatic triumph in that game left the Pack one game victory short of ending its 22-match ACC losing streak.
Sophomore outside hitter Jessica Williams said the team knew how close it was after the second game.
“We were extremely excited,” Williams said. “We knew that [with] one game we’d get our first ACC win.”
But the next game was the beginning of the end, as State would drop its 23rd consecutive conference contest. After a late 24-22 lead for the Pack in the third game, the Terrapins stormed back with eight of the final 12 points for a 30-28 win, cutting their deficit in the match to 2-1.
After the tight contest in the third, the fourth game was a quick victory for Maryland, as it took advantage of 13 attack errors by State en route to a 30-15 decision.
Early in that game, sophomore outside hitter and captain Keshia Raibon went to the sideline with a bleeding nose and didn’t return until the start of the fifth game.
Williams said the team lost its lead because it didn’t maintain its intensity throughout the match.
“We fell apart. We just got too relaxed,” Williams said. “So we just need to stay more into the game.”
With one game left and the match tied 2-2, the Pack stood 15 points from an elusive victory and also 15 points from blowing a 2-0 lead. The Terrapins jumped out to a 9-4 lead in that final frame and never trailed after that juncture in the fifth game, winning 15-11 to seal the 3-2 comeback victory in the match.
Even though it was the team’s first five-game match of the season, freshman setter and captain Allison Davis said fatigue wasn’t what hurt the team.
“We do plenty of conditioning in practice, so I don’t think any of us really wore out,” Davis said. “I think it was mostly just mental and heart.”
Junior libero Andrea Bentley said the team wasn’t prepared for what it would take to seal the match win.
“We were scared, and we didn’t do what we needed to do,” Bentley said. “We were afraid of the moment.”
Stubbs also said some of her players were “afraid of the moment.” She added her players need to learn how to better trust each other. “There’s not a lot of trust there when it comes down to it,” Stubbs said. “I don’t know why that is, to be honest.”
As for what the team could take from such a tight ACC loss in which the team held the lead, Bentley had a simple answer.
“Make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Bentley said.
Davis took it a step further, saying the team is on the cusp of breaking through with an ACC win.
“We’re there. That’s all it takes to beat those teams,” Davis said. “And we can play with any team in this conference. And now that we’re so close, that’s our first five-game match of the season — it’s on now. Let’s go.”
