Virginia volleyball has mired in the dungeon of the ACC for a long time. The last eight conference seasons have been marked by 25 wins, 116 losses and eight consecutive finishes inside the bottom five. The Cavaliers have looked helpless at times, and they have been disappointing during most others.
But this season seems different. As Virginia prepares to begin its 2024-25 ACC campaign Friday against Wake Forest, Coach Shannon Wells’ team is primed to stop the streak. Not since 2003 have the Cavaliers opened a season with 10 wins in their first 11 matches, a stretch during which the team has dropped just 13 sets in total. And while conference play is bound to pose tougher challenges, Virginia’s performance thus far indicates it is ready for the test.
According to Wells, the secret to Virginia’s success has been its group of seniors. After the Cavaliers’ win over Middle Tennessee State last week, which pushed their winning streak to seven matches, Wells noted the season-long efforts of outside hitter Brooklyn Borum, middle blocker Abby Tadder, setter Ashley Le and defensive specialist Milan Gomillion. The team has six seniors in total, rounded out by outside hitter Elayna Duprey and defensive specialist Heyli Velasquez.
“We just have so many people that have a lot of experience, and [the team is] relying on that right now,” Wells said. “I just think our upperclassmen are doing a great job of leading this team.”
Somehow, that might be an understatement. Tadder, Duprey and Borum are the team’s three leaders in kills, Le is setting the pace in assists with 285 and Gomillion’s 181 digs account for almost 30 percent of the Cavaliers’ team total. Virginia’s senior sextuple is its heartbeat.
Perhaps that is why the team has shown tremendous grit during each of its five-set matches this season, the most recent of which came during the Cavaliers’ aforementioned victory over the Lightning last week. Le recorded a career-high 51 assists in that match, while Tadder posted a team-high seven blocks, which placed her inside the top 10 all-time in program history.
Wells believes that veteran leadership, along with a whole lot of preparation, has turned Virginia into a team that embraces the marathon match.
“We’ve been playing the fifth set since January,” Wells said. “I really do think that we've been preparing for this for eight months. Every time we've been in the fifth set, you just see a very composed group, and [a reliance on] our seniors in those moments to just kind of get us through with that experience.”
While the Cavaliers are 3-0 in five-set matches this year, the likes of Middle Tennessee State, Liberty and Coastal Carolina are far cries from the competition up and down the ACC. Virginia has not played a ranked team this season, but fans can be sure the Cavaliers will encounter plenty of them soon enough.
Home bouts against No. 1 Pittsburgh and No. 5 Louisville await Virginia in November. In between, it will embark on a daunting west coast road trip to play No. 3 Stanford and California on back-to-back days. The Cavaliers will also host No. 18 Florida State, No. 23 Southern Methodist and a talented Miami team that will visit John Paul Jones Arena Oct. 6.
In spite of the gauntlet her team must face, and the near decade-long history of bottom-dwelling the program has succumbed to, Wells is looking forward to the task.
“I’m really excited,” Wells said. “I think the ACC is the best volleyball conference in the country, and what an opportunity. This is the best roster we've had … I'm excited for our fans to come out and help us through a really, really big finish.”
Evidently, and justifiably, Wells can not contain her excitement. In her fourth year at the helm of the program, the seniors — many of which she has coached since her debut season — are helping the team turn a corner.
It is too early to call this a defining season for Virginia volleyball, but if the wins keep piling up and the crowds at Memorial Gymnasium grow, that is precisely what it will be.
For now, though, the focus is on the present. The focus is on Friday, when Wake Forest stands in the way of Virginia’s first conference-opening win since 2015.
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