WRAL Sports Fan

North Carolina State University

VB: NC State Falls to Wake Forest, 3-2

Oct 27, 2012

Winston-Salem, N.C. — After falling behind 2-1 and fighting its way back into contention in the fifth set, NC State's volleyball team fell to Wake Forest 3-2 in its fourth five-set match of the season on Friday night.

The Pack rolled in the fourth set, 25-19, and seemed to be in control in the decisive fifth set, but Wake Forest scored six of the match's final seven points for a 16-14 win in the final set.

"Wake came out and played great, and we didn't respond,"said NC State head coach Bryan Bunn. "We had our chances and didn't take advantage of the opportunity.

"This is what happens when you don't have a great week of practice. Hopefully, we learned a lesson from this."

In front of an inspired Dig For the Cure crowd of 831 at Wake's Reynolds Gym, the Wolfpack faced the Demon Deacons' biggest crowd of the season, on hand to support Wake's head coach Heather Kahl Holmes, who was diagnosed with cancer in April.

The Wolfpack (19-4 overall, 9-3 ACC) has been resilient all season, but was unable to overtake Wake Forest's 2-1 lead. It was the fifth time this season the Pack trailed a match 2-1. Prior to Friday's setback, it had come back to beat UNC Wilmington and Georgia Tech, 3-2, but had lost to Virginia Commonwealth in five and Miami in four.

Sophomore Dariyan Hopper led State with 15 kills, followed by sophomore Nikki Glass with 14, sophomore Alesha Wilson with 13 and junior Brie Merriwether with 12.

Andrea Beck had a match-high 20 kills with a .486 hitting average for Wake Forest (9-15, 3-9).
The Deacons outhit the Wolfpack throughout the match, posting a higher hitting percentage in four of the five sets, owning an overall advantage of .230 to .190.

In the decisive fifth set, Glass led off with NC State's service rotation and the Pack jumped out to a 4-0 lead, forcing the Deacons to call timeout. Wake stayed close, but the Wolfpack pushed its lead to 13-10. That's when Wake went on its final scoring run to win the set 16-14 and the match 3-2.

The two teams were close throughout the first set, until the Wolfpack scored four straight points to take an 18-16 lead. The Deacs retook the lead 22-20, forcing the Pack to call timeout.

Three straight points on kills by senior setter Megan Cyr and Hopper and an error by the Deacons put the Wolfpack back in the lead, behind the serve of Alston Kearns.

In the third set, the Wolfpack jumped out to a 5-1 lead with back-to-back service aces by Glass. Wake scored nine of the next 11 points, forcing a Wolfpack time out.

The Deacs scored four straight, forcing Bunn to burn another timeout with his team trailing 14-7. The Deacons' run eventually ended at 15-2, but they led by as many as eight points. The Pack scored three in a row, but couldn't close the gap before Wake won the set 25-19 to take a 2-1 lead in the match.

In the fourth set, the Wolfpack played its best game of the match, hitting .333 and leading by as many as eight points en route to a 25-19 win to tie the match.

The Wolfpack returns to action with its second ACC road match in as many days when it travels to Duke on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Cameron Indoor Stadium.