Syracuse opened and closed each practice this week working on its match serves. Individual drills help develop speed and spin. After everyone is loose, serve-receivers are added in so the servers have to worry about placement and trajectory, SU assistant coach Erin Little said. On Friday, Syracuse hopes practice will prevent something that’s never happened before.

Syracuse (6-4, 2-0 Atlantic Coast) has never lost to Wake Forest (5-9, 0-2) in six meetings. The Orange travel to face the Demon Deacons on Friday in Winston-Salem, North Carolina Syracuse won the first meeting in 2013 in four sets. Over the past five years, SU has only dropped five sets to Wake Forest, including two in 2016.

On Oct. 28, 2016, Syracuse and Wake Forest met for the third time. After the Demon Deacons took a two set to one lead, SU recovered to win the fourth and the match went to a decisive fifth set.

The Orange capitalized on the momentum and jumped out to an early lead, 5-1. From there, it held onto its lead and earned a match point at 14-8. Current SU senior Anastasiya Gorelina dug up a whiffed kill from the Demon Deacons. Fellow senior Jalissa Trotter hustled towards the net and passed it right in front of senior Santita Ebangwese. The Rochester, New York native crushed it between two Wake Forest defenders, just inside the baseline.

Since the first matchup five years ago, Wake Forest has won 20 conference matches out of 79 played. This year, its struggles have continued. The Demon Deacons dropped its first six sets in ACC play to Florida State and Miami. Still, SU is not taking its opposition lightly, focusing on improving its serving, passing, and blocking, Little said.

“Wake comes in with the same mentality,” she said. “It’s more what we have to do.”

Oct. 1 last year, Syracuse started the match “half asleep,” Trotter said.

Tied at 7-7 in the opening set, current Wake Forest sophomore Caroline Kuhn missed a serve wide. The Orange led at 5-4, 6-5, and 7-6, but this time, SU used the lead as a springboard. Trotter and others clapped their hands, trying to motivate their teammates, she said. Immediately, Syracuse picked up its tempo and ripped off 10 of the next 13 points, taking the first set 25-18. Eventually, the match was won in four sets.

This weekend, Trotter and Amber Witherspoon want to avoid a similar scenario. The Orange don’t want it to be close.

“We know that we need to prepare for ourselves to be in a situation where we do not want to be,” Trotter said. “Teams like this, they’re really scrappy. They’re hustling, they’re always communicating. They have energy all the time. We want to make sure that we don’t go down. We don’t want to be in a position where we lose, and that would be bad for us.”

Head coach Leonid Yelin is focusing on aggressive serving in order to force teams to conform to the pace he wants, Witherspoon said.

While Syracuse showed improvements last Friday against Georgia Tech, totaling six aces and three errors, Syracuse struggled Sunday with 18 service errors and only four aces.

That’s Wake Forest’s strength. It recorded 19 aces in only six sets last weekend. Syracuse will have to match it, Trotter said.

“When they’re a little smaller, they can move quicker,” said Trotter. “They get to more balls and they serve receive a little tougher just so they can get those big points.”

Published on September 26, 2018 at 9:49 pm

Contact Adam: adhillma@syr.edu | @_adamhillman