Outside hitters are red hot as volleyball falls to Duke on the road

DURHAM, N.C. – After both hitting negative against North Carolina Friday, Kiernan Stamey and Marie Laurio took their Sunday?  match with Duke as an opportunity: rack up as many kills as possible against the Blue Devils.

By the end of the second set, they had already combined for 26 successful attacks after only totaling 8 against the Tar Heels. Despite the explosion from both Stamey and Laurio, the Orange couldn’t escape the weekend trip to Chapel Hill with a set victory, falling in sweep fashion to Duke in Durham.

“Very disciplined,” SU head coach Bakeer Ganesharatnam said of Stamey and Laurio. “I thought they did a really good job giving Duke different looks on offense, changing up the tempos, really forcing the defense to make moves, and then creating opportunities for them to hit off the block and scoring.” 

Stamey proves to be a threat to any opposing defense, leading the Orange in kills for most of the season to this point. Laurio’s eruption proved to be helpful for Syracuse, with two good options at the outside hitter position helping to open up the offense. Where most of the production against North Carolina came from the right side and the middle, outside hitters recorded 32 of SU’s 42 kills. 

The first two sets of the match both came down to the wire, with the first being decided in extra points. Some late-set heroics from Stamey kept the Orange in it during the extra points, but Duke strung 2 points together to put the first set away, 27-25. By the end of the first set, Stamey already had 8 kills. 

Syracuse competed in the second set as well, putting Duke in a deuce situation in the middle portion before the Blue Devils pulled away. This set saw issues pop up for Syracuse on serve-receive, something coach Ganesharatnam said was a bright spot against North Carolina Friday. 

Duke found a rhythm to close out the match quickly in the third set, capitalizing off of errors from Syracuse to pull away. It ended the match with a 25-15 set win. 

The Orange had four service aces to Duke’s seven on the game, but tallied seven service errors, handing the ball right back to Duke just when they seemed to be building  momentum. With 16 total errors and 12 coming on attacks, it was a tough afternoon in Durham for the Orange. 

“We couldn’t keep it all the way through the end of the match,” Ganesharatnam said. “It was tough to run our offense once that happened in the third set.”

Syracuse looks to bounce back Wednesday as it hosts  Boston College.