With a number of past players in attendance for Homecomings weekend, the Virginia volleyball team defeated conference foe Notre Dame 3-1 Sunday afternoon in Charlottesville. The team celebrated getting a win for their former teammates by singing the Good Ol’ Song on the court with them after the match.
“It means a lot [to win in front of the former players],” freshman Haley Kole said. “We had a ton of alumni here today, and they were just so proud of what we’ve done and the work that we’ve done to get to this point now. We just want to keep working hard and make them happy.”
Virginia (12-10, 5-5 ACC) now has consecutive ACC wins for the first time since 2011. The first W came this past Wednesday, when the Cavaliers defeated Virginia Tech, 3-1, to notch their first victory in the series since 2009.
These victories come on the heels of two 3-0 losses last weekend, after which head coach Dennis Hohenshelt had some strong words on the team’s performance. Sunday, he could hardly be happier.
“I’m pretty harsh with them from the get-go,” Hohenshelt said. “By Sunday I’d forgotten about it. We go to work and we work on the things we’re supposed to do. They know how I felt about it, but I don’t hold it against them for the rest of the week. For them to bounce back like they did Wednesday and then for them to continue playing like that on Sunday says a lot about their character and a lot about where this team is heading.”
The match started less than ideally for Virginia. In a first set that featured numerous ties and lead changes, the Fighting Irish (8-13, 2-8 ACC) ultimately prevailed 23-25. The Cavaliers bounced back, however, to win the final three sets 25-17, 25-15, and 25-23.
At one point in the fourth set, with Virginia trailing 17-12, it seemed the game was headed for a fifth. But a 7-1 run vaulted the Cavaliers to the lead, and they won 13 of the final 19 points to earn the victory in four sets.
“I’m really proud of our team for being down one and coming back and winning, and being down in the last set and coming back and winning in four,” junior Tori Janowski said.
The Cavaliers saw great production from their front line. Janowski led the team with 22 kills, while Kole, freshman Jasmine Burton, and junior Mallory Woolridge each had more than 10 kills. None had more than four errors, as Virginia hit .363 for the match, the team’s best hitting percentage against an ACC foe this season. The quartet’s production has been crucial to the team’s success this season.
“It’s good to finally get the ball rolling and all of us playing well at the same time,” Janowski said. “When that happens, we normally win.”
Another important player for the Cavaliers has been their libero and lone senior, Emily Rottman. She finished the day with 15 digs, four assists and a service ace. Thanks to her 15 digs against the Fighting Irish, she moved into a tie with Whitney Ashcroft for third on the Virginia career list with 1,603.
With half of the conference schedule yet to be played, the team has already shown marked improvement over last year’s performance. The Cavaliers have already exceeded last season’s overall and conference win totals of nine and three, respectively. Many times in 2012, the team would seem to give up when they fell behind, but Hohenshelt is making sure that trend is in the past.
“That’s part of the thing we’re figuring out — how do we maintain the good things a little bit longer and how do we push through,” Hohenshelt said. “I think we got real casual in how we play. We’re an aggressive group and we’ve got to keep being aggressive. That was my talk in the middle of set 4, it was ‘hey, keep the foot on the accelerator, let’s go.’”
Virginia plays on the road next weekend against Georgia Tech and Clemson, with a chance to move above .500 in the ACC for the first time in more than three years.
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