By Zack Ciboth, Sports Editor
The UNC Pembroke volleyball team fell Thursday night in a five-set thriller to the Lenoir-Rhyne Bears in non-conference action. It was the home opener for the Braves after spending the first two weeks of the season on the road competing in invitationals in Ohio and West Virgina. The Braves had strong momentum after dropping the first set and claiming the next two, but the Bears mounted the comeback for the 3-2 win (25-9,19-25,19-25,25-16,15-9)
The first set saw the Bears jump out to a 12-4 lead early and used early momentum to pull away fast in the set and killed any chance the Braves had as they look the 1-0 lead in a 25-9 first set win. The second set saw the Braves shake off another slow start and despite Lenoir-Rhyne staying in it and keeping it close, the Braves used adversity and momentum and pushed their lead to 16-12 and eventually 21-12 as they held on to take the second set 25-19 and tie the match at 1-1.
” I think it was just nerves in the beginning. When you’re on your home court it could be exciting, but you know, we had a good crowd and I think it was just the nerves in the beginning and we kind of had a talk and to just relax and find our pace early, so we got going pretty quick,” UNCP coach Jaleesa Harper said.
The Braves took their momentum from the second set and brought it over to the third set also as they picked up where they left off and jumped out to an early lead, but the Bears quickly erased it and tied it up at 9-9, but the Braves battled and dug deep and jumped out to the lead for good afer a 7-0 surge and they took the 2-1 lead taking the set 25-19.
“Yeah, that’s something we talk about a lot, how to handle adversity, but just staying relaxed and calm in those moments to try to shift the momentum to our side. Our girl’s kind of dug deep and once we found our pace, we kind of took off from there in sets two and three.” Harper said.
The Bears did not go down easily fighting their way back into this match by taking advantage of a slow start and jumping out to a fast early lead after capitalizing off a 9-0 run and kept pushing taking the set 25-16 and forcing a fifth set. The Bears used the fifth set to jump out to another early lead and handled the set pretty well taking it 15-9 and the win on the road.
In the loss Vanja Przulj had herself a night with 32 kills on the night breaking a school record and recording the most kills in a NCAA Division ll five-set match in the process. Emma Fraidenburg recorded 11 kills and Katelyn West with seven to follow. Karagyn Durco tallied 29 assists on the night, Katie Pressley had 23 and Hope Turbyfill recorded seven. Kyleigh Coghlan had 18 digs on the night, Katelynn Swain had two blocks at the net.
“I did not know about that, it wasn’t something that I was going for, but when I heard it, I mean it kind of feels nice but again even though it was an individual thing, I think I would not be able to do that without my team,” Przulj said.
When asked about her performance so far this season and how her team has helped her Przulj had this to say:
“I mean it’s great, honestly thought it was gonna be kind of hard because the whole team is new. Starting lineup is new, but I think everyone fits in pretty well and the returners, we were all very welcoming so yeah it’s really nice.”
The Braves return to action on Saturday as they host a Tri-match at home. The Black and Gold (4-5, 0-0 CC) will take on Chowan (0-7, 0-0 CC) at 3 p.m. and then take on Winston-Salem State (2-3) at 7 p.m. Chowan and Winston-Salem State will play each other in between at 5 p.m.
“Yeah, just taking it one match at a time, sometimes it can be challenging when you’re playing two games in one day’ cause things can get jumbled up. We’re going to focus on Chowan first, get a game plan together for them. We’ll have a break in between and then we’ll focus on Winston-Salem State so it’s more of taking one set at a time and one game at a time and hopefully we can come out with two wins on Saturday,” Harper said.