Sports > October 6, 2004

By Ryan Durham

Old Gold & Black Reporter

The Wake Forest volleyball team dropped two conference games to Miami and Florida State on Oct. 1-2. The Deacs’ record now stands at 8-6 overall, 0-4 in conference play.

The Demon Deacons traveled to Miami, Fla. Oct. 1 to face the Miami Hurricanes at the Knight Complex. The Deacs lost in three games with scores of 30-24, 30-20 and 30-19.

In game one of the match, Wake Forest stayed close to Miami until the Hurricanes pulled away with a three-point run, making the game 12-9.

The Deacs stayed at this distance for most of the game, rallying to within one point once in the game.

Wake Forest was not able to hold off a strong Hurricane attack late in the match, as the Hurricanes made a 5-0 run late in the game.

The Deacs never really rebounded and lost the game 30-24.

Game two started off much the same as game one. The Deacons went point-for-point with the Hurricanes until the middle of the game. They took the lead 18-17 at one point, only to lose the next nine points to the Hurricanes. This gave Miami a 26-18 lead from which the Deacs never recovered, eventually losing 30-20.

The Hurricanes came out strong in game three of the match, scoring the first two points. Wake Forest rallied to tie the game at 6-6, only to allow another four-point run and then a six-point run soon after that.

The Deacs never rebounded from this deficit, losing the game 30-19 and the match 3-0.

“I give credit to Miami for their excellent performance as a new ACC team,” Head Coach Valorie Baker said. “(But) I feel that because we are not at 100 percent health wise it has affected the chemistry of the team.”

Junior Valerie Rydberg was the only Deacon to put up double digits in anything besides assists with 13 kills. Junior Erin Borhart had 30 assists in the match, leading the team.

The Deacs had 39 kills to Miami’s 51 kills. Also, Miami out-hit them .381 to .116 in the match.

The next day, the Deacs went from Coral Gables to Tallahassee to face the Florida State Seminoles on Lucy McDaniel Court, and they again fell in three close games.

The ‘Noles took an early lead in game one of the match and coasted to a 30-20 win.

Game two was a very different story. Neither team was able to win by two until Florida State finally triumphed by a score of 41-39.

The Deacs lost the match when they dropped the third game 30-26.

Freshman Michael Faulkner had an amazing performance with nine kills and nine digs in the match.

“It felt good to get in and help the team even though we didn’t win,” Faulkner said.

Junior Christy Williams and senior Morgan Havig each had 10 kills in the game. Borhart had another 36 assists and Rydberg and sophomore Natasha Schaefer each had 10 digs.

The Deacs were out-hit in the match .138 to .245 and had only 46 kills to Miami’s 62.

The loss drops Wake Forest to 8-6 and 0-4 in conference play.

The Deacs return to action Oct. 8 against Georgia Tech and Oct. 9 against Clemson. Both games will take place in Reynolds Gym.