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Navy’s Jamie Llewellyn bounced the ball, wound up and delivered an ace, putting Syracuse behind on the very first serve of the 2023 season. SU’s Cherlin Antonio committed attacking errors across the next two possessions and the Orange fell into an early 3-0 hole.

Year two of Bakeer Ganesharatnam’s tenure as head coach of Syracuse’s volleyball program began inauspiciously as Navy, UAlbany, and UCF all had its way with a young SU outfit. The Orange lost nine sets over the last two days in their season-opening round-robin in Albany. Just one of the sets was decided by a margin of less than 5 points. It marks the first time that Syracuse has lost the first nine sets of a volleyball season since 1983.

That opening set against Navy ended with SU losing 25-14. The Midshipmen registered 13 kills and just one error.

SU opened up the second set with a service error. Three quick tallies for Navy ensued, quashing any chance for an optimistic start. Despite coming within one point of evening in the set on three different occasions (4-3, 5-4, and 19-18), the Orange never drew level. Navy won the second set 25-20, despite seven errors.

A momentum shift felt imminent in the third set, as Syracuse grabbed its first lead of the match on freshman Greta Schlichter’s back-to-back kills off assists from Veronica Sierzant. The advantage extended to 14-8 after a Sierzant ace, but it wouldn’t last long. Consecutive SU attack errors kickstarted a 17-6 Navy run in an eventual 25-20 loss

Graduate student Alyssa Bert tallied a game-high 11 digs, but Navy’s Llewellyn twins were simply too much for SU to handle. Jordan Llewellyn logged 12 kills, and Jamie recorded nine.

On Saturday night, the competition’s host, Albany, picked up where Navy left off. The Great Danes won eight of the first 10 points en route to a 25-19 first-set victory.

After losing its first four sets of the season, Syracuse jumped out to a 14-8 lead in the second set after two straight aces from Sierzant and three kills by Zharia Harris-Waddy. But, in near-identical fashion to their third set against Navy, the Orange blew a 14-8 lead in a 25–22 defeat.

There were more positives to take away from SU’s freshman amid the sweep. Harris-Waddy led the team with eight kills in just her second collegiate match and Sierzant struck three kills to go along with her team-high eight digs and 22 assists.

Syracuse faced UCF next. The Knights, who finished 28-2 last season, have qualified for the NCAA Tournament every year since 2018. Sierzant opened up the game with an ace, her fourth of the tournament, but UCF took command from there, winning nine straight points, including three Claudia Dillon aces, to force a Ganesharatnam timeout.

Yet, the Knights were able to stretch their lead to 16-4 after the timeout. With SU trailing 19-8, UCF piled on four straight kills from three different players and locked down the first set, 25-8. UCF’s prowess was on display with 13 kills to zero errors in the first set.

In the second set, UCF registered another 13 kills and held Syracuse to single digits. It was more of the same from UCF’s attackers, with Wilson, Abby Hansen and Avah Armour putting up 10, 11 and seven kills, respectively, throughout the match.

Sierzant’s opening ace at the beginning of the match was the only one Syracuse would notch all afternoon. UCF dominated the serving game, winning 11 points via the ace.

The Orange once again fell behind big in the third set but showed much more fight. From a 17-6 deficit, an impressive play by Waddy-Harris, who tallied a team-high five kills, helped Syracuse stay competitive the rest of the way. However, SU’s inability to recover from a sluggish start resulted in a 25-14 loss, and in turn, its third consecutive sweep in just as many outings.

Published on August 26, 2023 at 4:51 pm

Contact Sam: sefederm@syr.edu