Late in the final match of this weekend's Fairfield Inn Jefferson Cup Tournament, the Virginia women's volleyball team found itself in a less than enviable position.
The Cavaliers dug a five-point deficit to begin the fifth and decisive game against the University of Pennsylvania. Virginia, however, would fight back to win that game and claim the match (22-30, 30-20, 24-30, 30-27, 15-9). The Cavaliers were undefeated in the tournament, defeating Radford and Duquesne on Friday as well, finishing 3-0 and winning the tournament championship.
Virginia's late surge was led by sophomore Emily Perilli. The outside hitter notched a kill to stop the 5-0 Quaker run that began the fifth game. On the ensuing serve, Perilli scored an ace as the Cavaliers (7-1) began a scoring run of their own.
"You have those games where everything just clicks," Perilli said. "We had the desire to win and we just went out there and executed."
Perilli scored her second ace to tie the score at 5-5. Virginia's seven point run yielded a 7-5 Cavalier lead that would not be surrendered. Senior co-captain Alexis Geocaris also added three crucial kills in the fifth game to secure the win.
"We didn't really get nervous [in the fifth game]," Geocaris said. "We all wanted that game and battled back. After we got some momentum we knew we could do it."
The match did not start off well for the Cavaliers. Penn (2-1) dominated the first game of the match. The Quakers used an eight point run to separate themselves from the Cavaliers early.
The Cavaliers would rebound to take the second game, 30-20. Virginia posted a .382 team hitting percentage against a stingy Quaker defense. Penn's defense was crucial to the Quakers' play during the tournament as they entered the match against Virginia with two easy wins earlier in the tournament.
The momentum pendulum swung back to Penn's side in the third game as the Quakers used an 8-2 scoring run to pull away from the Cavaliers. The Cavalier offense stalled in that game as Virginia hit .071 as a team. Part of the low hitting percentage can be attributed to Penn, who had four team blocks in the third game alone.
"Their defense was better than any other we've seen so far this year, so I think that kind of threw us off," Geocaris said.
In the fourth game, both teams brought increased intensity as players on both sides of the net dove and hustled to make plays on the ball. In that game, there were nine tie scores and five lead changes.
"We are all exhausted," Perilli said. "It's a lot of pressure out there knowing you have to win this game to get to the fifth game."
Penn threatened late in the fourth game, but on two separate occasions Geocaris slammed down kills that halted the Quakers. Geocaris led the attack as she notched six of her 15 kills and scored the final point of that game.
Sophomore Lindsay Osco had 14 kills and 17 digs in the match and was named tournament MVP. Geocaris and sophomore setter Emily Kirkwood were also named to the all-tournament team. Kirkwood handed out 62 assists in the match and had only one less assist than the whole Penn team. Kirkwood's younger sister, Sarah, notched her first career double-double as she tallied a match-high 27 kills and 17 digs. Freshman Melissa Caldwell registered a match-high 29 digs and sophomore Meghan O'Leary was the fourth Cavalier to register double digits in kills as she tallied 10 in the match.
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