Syracuse loses in straight sets to No. 2 Louisville on record-breaking day for Shemanova
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Riley Hoffman made a backwards set to Bre Walp, who spiked the ball from the right corner of the net off a defender to pick up the kill. The point cut Syracuse’s second-set deficit to one point, serving as the first sign of life for the Orange, who lost the first set and quickly fell behind 8-3 in the second one at home.
After trading points back and forth, No. 2 Louisville (15-1, 6-0 Atlantic Coast) responded with four consecutive points to build an 18-13 lead, forcing the Orange to call a timeout. The Cardinals soon took the second set, 25-18, ultimately sweeping Syracuse (8-8, 4-2 ACC) in three sets to hand the Orange their second conference loss on a day when Polina Shemanova became Syracuse’s all-time career kills leader.
With the Cardinals leading 3-1 in the third set, Lauren Woodford set up Shemanova’s 11th kill of the match. With that kill, Shemanova surpassed Dana Fiume’s record of 1,698, which she set in 2000. Shemanova said that she was focused on the match, but her teammates immediately pointed out to her that she had just broken the record.
“Obviously you are excited when you get (the record) on the court, but that’s still not something you want to be focused on during the game,” Shemanova said. “I knew about it (when it happened), but still you’re playing the same game, you’re competing — yes, it’s a great achievement, but nothing else has changed.”
Shemanova finished with 13 kills on the day, more than double the amount that any other player on Syracuse produced. Walp and Viktoriia Lokhmanchuk also pitched in with six and five kills, respectively. Louisville was led by 13 kills apiece from Claire Chaussee and Aiko Jones, while Raquel Lazaro put up 32 assists. Hoffman led the Orange with 16 assists with Woodford’s 11 coming in right behind her.
The Orange did earn five service aces — two of which came courtesy of Alyssa Bert — compared to only one by the Cardinals. But that was Syracuse’s only significant statistical advantage on the day as Louisville outplayed the Orange in every other facet of the game. That included the Cardinals producing 40 digs to Syracuse’s 26 — its lowest total of the season.
Despite the loss, SU head coach Bakeer Ganesharatnam considers the opportunity to play one of the nation’s best teams to be beneficial. The Orange proved that they “can compete against that level of a team,” Ganesharatnam said, while simultaneously gaining an understanding of certain areas in which they need to improve in order to start winning matches against top teams. He praised Syracuse’s ability to keep each set reasonably close, specifically through the first 15 points, as opposed to potentially getting blown out from the jump. Over the course of the three sets, the Orange never trailed by more than five when Louisville reached 15 points.
Syracuse started the third set strong, jumping out to a 10-8 lead on a block by Raina Hughes and Naomi Franco that momentarily electrified the crowd. Louisville then reeled off five consecutive points to build a 13-10 lead — one that it wouldn’t relinquish. The Orange strung together a three-point scoring run of their own with a kill each from Shemanova and Walp in addition to a service ace from Lokhmanchuk, but it wasn’t enough to dig themselves out of the deficit they’d fallen into.
“We had some errors that kind of separated ourselves from them and it was really tough to catch up to them,” Ganesharatnam said. “But overall, I thought (through) 15 points in every set, we were right there with them and (there were) a lot of things we did well that we can build on moving forward.”
