Height dominance up front leads Syracuse past Clemson in straight-sets, 3-0

Santita Ebangwese took her two patented large strides up to the net, before striking the ball on the run, straight down through the opposing block and straight into the floor of the Women’s Building.

Time and time again on Friday night, the Syracuse frontline outmatched a much shorter Clemson attack. Even as the Tigers tried to switch up attack plans, no coaching or strategy could overcome the aerial dominance of the Orange’s 6-foot plus attack. In Friday night’s battle, Syracuse (12-6, 4-1 Atlantic Coast) dominated the aerial battle above the net against Clemson (5-12, 0-5 Atlantic Coast), claiming a 3-0 straight set victory 25-17, 25-16, 25-21 victory.

With no Clemson player up front over six foot two inches, the Orange towered above as the 6-foot-4 duo of Anastasiya Gorelina and Christina Oyawele piled up kills offensively. A lack of net resistance from Clemson led to Oyawele’s season high in kills (11) and a hitting percentage of .917. The hitting percentage set a single-match record for the program (minimum 10 attempts), a record that had stood previously for 23 years.

“It’s good to have size, but it’s only size when you know how to use your size by doing the right things,” head coach Leonid Yelin said.

The Orange put immense defensive pressure on Clemson through both blocks and errors from the Tigers’ leading attackers. Syracuse recorded 12 blocks, twice as many as Clemson, which was held to just a .037 hitting percentage, the second best Syracuse defensive performance of the season.

“I expect that we can do much better with blocking and tried to do more than we should at some points tonight,” Yelin said. “But we hope that every game they are learning how to do what they have to do to be disciplined, we have to stick to the game plan, and that is part of the game plan.”

On the night, Clemson had 25 attack errors, mostly due to the long arms of freshman Dana Gardner and Ebangwese rising up to deter each kill attempt. As the match developed, the Tigers altered the game plan, attempting fewer pure power kills and opting to attempt to place their kills, specifically trying to tip the ball over Syracuse blockers.

But when the Tigers tried to replicate the Orange success with blocking shots, many of those block attempts ended up in the Tigers’ net due to the power and angle of attack from Gorelina and Oyawele.

Be it long arms on defense or powerful kills, Syracuse’s height was the difference on Friday.