The UNC volleyball team advanced to the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament after a 3-0 victory over Hampton Friday night in Carmichael Arena.
With the win, the Tar Heels improve to 26-2 overall and remain the seven-seeded team in the final regular season poll. The Pirates drop to 21-11 overall.
UNC finished the regular season on a 17-match winning streak and an ACC Championship title.
“We were well prepared I thought, we knew they were going to be pretty good,” UNC Coach Joe Sagula says. “The team hit .300, which is great to do in an NCAA match. We were able to hold Hampton, who we knew was a very good offensive team, hold them and we were able to block well with 13 blocks.”
UNC senior Lauren McAdoo had three of those blocks and pounded eight kills with a .471 hitting percentage.
“Tonight was definitely one of our best–almost probably–serving games of the whole season. I think almost everyone that served got an ace, at least one, and that’s awesome. That’s doesn’t happen a whole lot in college volleyball so it was pretty impressive,” McAdoo says.
Carolina had a slow start in the match, falling behind 5-2 in the first set. Back-to-back aces from McAdoo brought the teams to a tie at 7-7. Carolina mounted a 25-7 finish in the third set to win the match 3-0.
“We had 12 service aces in the match. Nine errors, though, but most of those were in the first set. We basically wanted to show a little more patience at the service line after that first game,” Sagula says. “Then we started serving better. As we did that, we put the pressure on them. We knew where the ball was going to go.”
UNC dominated the serving and blocking game with 12 aces to to Hampton’s one and 13.0 blocks to only 2.0 for the Pirates.
‘We feel really good about our opportunities here being at home. I think it’s a matter of us putting up what we do well which is to block well, play good defense, serve tough, and hit high percentage. If we do those things, I’ll think we’ll be okay,” Sagula says.
The Tar Heels will compete against Southern California in the second round of the NCAA Tournament Saturday at 6 p.m. in Carmichael Arena.
FINAL BOX SCORE
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