Syracuse Volleyball Clears Out the Weekend with a 3-0 Victory

By Annie Klaff

CitrusTV Volleyball Reporter

This weekend in the Cy-Hawk Series Tournament, the Orange finished it off with a bang. SU succeeded on Friday against Iowa, but fell to Iowa State just last night. This afternoon, they took back their reign and defeated Ball State in all three quick sets. The first set, the Orange secured it by 25-16. Shortly after that, Ball State came back a bit stronger to gain 18 points against Syracuse’s 25. Unfortunately for the Cardinals though, the Orange came out even harder than before and defeated Ball State by 12 total points. Similarly to yesterday, Polina Shemanova led the match in kills with 20 total. Syracuse dominated Ball State’s kill leader, as theirs only tallied on 8 kills. Additionally, SU’s hitting percentage almost doubled the Cardinal’s with 48.9% 

Ball State’s head coach, Kelli Miller Phillips, mentioned during post-match conferences that, “Syracuse was a really tough team. Their outside hitters are incredibly physical and we had trouble slowing them down.” There’s no surprise that outside hitter Polina Shemanova contributed to the Orange’s successes and performances this weekend. It will be exciting to see how the St. Petersburg native continues to stand out moving forward. 

Last night, SU took their first loss of the season, but today was their major comeback. The Orange changed their record to 8-1 today against the Cardinals, but they’ve yet to play a conference opponent. Syracuse has a bit of a break, playing Mississippi St as their next challenge next Friday. In terms of ACC opponents, the Orange take on North East rivals, Boston College on September 22nd. This will be their first true test of their conference season.

@annieklaff | aklaff@citrustv.net