Syracuse commits fewer errors than Louisville in 5-set victory

Tied up at 23-23 near the end of the second set, Syracuse called a timeout. The girls huddled up, some sitting and some standing. All were looking at head coach Leonid Yelin as he gestured with his hands. When the one-minute, 15-second timeout was over, seven of the girls took the court opposite Louisville. They wouldn’t be on the court much longer.

Louisville came off the timeout with Melanie McHenry serving. The thud of the ball hitting the ground as she dribbled it echoed around the gym. She placed the ball in her hand, her other hand raised above her head. She threw it up and hit it straight into the net. Syracuse got the point for the service error. One more point and SU would go into the locker room tied in sets at 1-1.

That point came in the form of an attack error by Louisville’s Morgan Miller. Syracuse’s Mackenzie Weaver hit the ball over the net. In an attempt to save it, Miller hit the ball out of bounds and the Orange won the set.

“There were a lot of errors from both sides,” Yelin said. “If somebody would have a little bit less then it would be an absolutely different outcome.”

The two teams combined for 75 points on each other’s errors. In the five-set match, each frame finished with SU and UofL within five points of each other. Syracuse topped Louisville, 3-2, on Sunday at the Women’s Building.

Syracuse (4-12, 3-3 Atlantic Coast) had 31 errors total, including 22 attack errors, eight service errors and one blocking error. Louisville (6-10, 1-5) had 46 total errors consisting of 37 attack errors, eight service errors and one blocking error. The Orange picked up its second win all-time against Louisville and second in two seasons.

“As a team, we worked really hard today to play for each other,” Weaver said.

Syracuse won the second, third and fifth sets, 25-23, 25-20 and 15-10, respectively. The Orange’s cleanest set was its second. Louisville committed 12 errors to SU’s seven. On Syracuse’s 11th point of the set, Jalissa Trotter chased a ball to a boundary line. As it started moving toward the bleachers, she reached her arm back but not enough to get the ball.

It landed out of bounds.

One of Louisville’s most impactful errors came midway through the fifth set. Syracuse was up by one, 8-7, when Louisville’s Tess Clark hit the ball out of bounds. The attack error gave Syracuse a two-point lead over Louisville and helped spark its momentum.

Immediately after, Weaver served. She threw the ball up and hit it straight onto Louisville’s side. McHenry juggled the ball before it hit the ground. Weaver was awarded the ace, putting the Orange ahead three points and only five points away from the win.

Two service errors, two attack errors and a Leah Levert kill later, Syracuse came out with a 15-10 fifth-set win.

While Syracuse had fewer errors than Louisville, it had a number of plays with bad coverage. Louisville scored many of its kills on plays when SU failed to cover enough ground. UofL’s errors bailed out the Orange’s defensive mistakes, however.

“We have to build (off) every game we have,” Yelin said. “Off every position, off everything good that happens.”