Syracuse volleyball drops 4th straight contest in Omaha

Syracuse completed its road trip to Nebraska with its fourth straight loss, falling to Nebraska-Omaha 3-0 on Tuesday night.

The Orange (3-4) failed to win a set in its three losses in the Bluejay Invitational last weekend, and that trend continued against the Mavericks.

Down 23-14 in the first set, Syracuse rallied for 10 straight points to take a lead, but the team couldn’t earn the final point to put the set away. With the score tied at 27, Nebraska-Omaha finished the Orange off with two kills to win the set 29-27.

Syracuse held the lead four times early in the second set before collapsing once the Mavericks reached double-digit points. SU cut the deficit to 23-20, but the hosts closed the Orange out with a 25-21 victory.

Staring at a fourth straight loss going into the third set, the Orange only held two leads as Nebraska-Omaha sealed the match with a 25-19 victory.

Silvi Uattara paced SU with nine kills while Emily Betteridge led the team with 19 assists. But the SU defense struggled to contain Nebraska-Omaha’s Kelley Wollak, who finished with 17 kills.

The Orange returns to action on Friday when it takes on Iowa at 10 a.m. and Eastern Washington at 4 p.m. in the Iowa State tournament. Syracuse faces Iowa State in its third and final game of the tournament at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday.

—Compiled by Austin Pollack, contributing writer, arpollac@syr.edu