Junior Silvi Uattara looks like the average outside hitter at 6 feet tall with long, powerful arms.

She uses a typical hitting strategy, looking to find the weak spots in the defense before she hits. But Uattara is anything but typical, as she finished last season with the 10th-most kills in Syracuse history (425) and is off to a great start in 2014.

“She’s just a very dominant player,” senior middle blocker Lindsay McCabe said. “You know when the setter gives her the ball she’s going to finish, get the kill for you.”

Uattara has racked up 885 kills so far in her career. This season she is on pace for even more, with 102 in her team’s first six matches. No other Syracuse (5-1) player has more than 70.

After being named to the All-Atlantic Coast Conference First Team at the end of last season, the Orange captain was named to the All-Tournament team in each of SU’s first two tournaments this year. Before the season began, ACC coaches named her to the preseason All-ACC team — and she’s lived up to those expectations thus far.

“Whenever you work hard and practice every single day and get those kind of awards, it makes you feel good and work even harder to get even more,” Uattara said.

As she prepares to jump for a ball, Uattara uses her peripheral vision to look to the other side of the net to find where the setter and defensive specialist are playing. She does this to determine if they are trying to play her for a cross hit or one at the 10-foot line. Using this information, she can more easily find an opening for the kill.

This past weekend, that approach helped Uattara lead the Orange to win three matches in the Windy City Invite. She led the team with 59 kills and 66.5 points, and added 12 blocks on the weekend.

Uattara credits her success killing the ball to a commonly used hitting strategy SU coach Leonid Yelin taught her.

“When you’re hitting the ball, just pretend you are blocking yourself,” Yelin said.

Despite Uattara’s dominance, setter Gosia Wlaszczuk said her coaches do not tell her to look for the outside hitter more than other players. Still, Wlaszczuk is constantly aware of Uattara’s presence on the court.

Unlike some of SU’s other players, Wlaszczuk said Uattara is constantly calling for the ball.

“It’s definitely great to have a person you can count on,” Wlaszczuk said, “and you can know that I can set her and she will finish for me in (the moments) when we need it.”

In Saturday’s 3-1 victory over Illinois-Chicago, Uattara delivered her best statistical performance of the season, recording season-highs with 28 kills and eight blocks. More importantly, she showed up in a big situation.

With the Orange facing set point down 25-24, Uattara recorded a kill to tie the set. SU won three out of the next four points to take the opening game. In the second set, with the score tied at 33, Uattara combined with McCabe for a block to give the team the lead. SU then won on the next point.

Yelin said he does have a statistical expectation, in terms of kills, blocks and points for Uattara, but she doesn’t concern herself as much with stats.

Uattara cares more about the expectations that come with winning preseason awards.

“I think that it’s definitely making me feel like I really want to do something more,” she said, “help my team more and prove to my team and to my coach that I deserved this.”

Published on September 9, 2014 at 12:05 am