Syracuse’s dominance at the net leads to four-set win over Clemson
As SU freshman Polina Shemanova bent her knees and thrust the ball into the air towards junior libero Aliah Bowllan, head coach Leonid Yelin had his eyes away from the court. SU led Clemson by one set and six points, 24-18. Yelin had one arm draped around the orange and blue folding chair next to him as his mind was invested in the game notes in front of him.
Bowllan placed the ball just ahead and above the head of Ella Saada. She leaped into the air, with one leg cocked back, and slammed her arm forward, almost directly next to the still distracted Yelin. She crushed the ball over the leaping middle blocker and into the hands of a kneeling Clemson outside hitter. It quickly dropped to the floor.
Yelin, still not watching as the point ended, was disrupted by the raucous cheers of the Syracuse bench as the Orange took a two set to none lead. It wasn’t that he was unaware of the situation. He knew that SU had the advantage near the net and was confident in his team’s ability to close it out, Yelin said.
“(Clemson) tried to deal with their lack of experience, lack of size,” he said. “They have to play a very, very fast tempo… With that style, they’re going to probably make errors.”
Syracuse (6-4, 2-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) dominated Clemson (9-6, 0-2 ACC) near the net in a four-set, 25-20, 25-18, 20-25, 25-21, victory on Sunday at the Women’s Building. SU had a hit percentage of .310, almost double that of the Tigers. The Orange also forced 27 errors and finished 57 points with kills.
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The Orange forced the Tigers into making mistakes through a “good block,” senior Jalissa Trotter said. SU blocked eight Clemson attacks today and is ranked No. 18 in the nation entering the weekend in blocks per set.
“When we block them a couple of times, they get nervous,” Trotter said. “With a hyper-fast offense, sometimes it just didn’t work.”
Early on in the fourth set, Syracuse trailed by one point, 4-3. Clemson outside hitter Ashtynne Alberts took two small steps, closing in toward the net. The ball was a few feet diagonally in front of her head. As she rose to the ball, Syracuse senior middle blockers, Amber Witherspoon and Christina Oyawale, noticed her and stepped towards the net, right next to one another.
Alberts struck the ball towards the ground, but the two SU seniors were prepared. They rose together and both touched the ball as it reflected downwards, right over the net. Alberts, returning back to the ground, couldn’t retrieve the ball as SU evened the score.
Three points later, Clemson had another chance to attack. Brooke Bailey rose to meet the descending ball, on the left side of the court. She struck the ball cross-court, away from Oyawale, and into the lower part of the net.
Plays like that were a common as Oyawale featured in her first game since an ankle injury against UConn on September 1. She was second on the Orange with three blocks but was part of the effort that pressured Clemson into 16 attack errors in the final two sets.
Blocks like that, along with the discrepancy in kills, deterred Clemson from playing as aggressively as it would have liked. Yet that was the Syracuse game plan all along. SU understood that it had the advantage near the net, so the Orange exploited it, Saada said.
“We were watching film before so we know how they were gonna play,” she said. “We hitters, this is what we need to do.”