Syracuse falls 3-0 to Miami, drops 3rd straight conference game

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Alyssa Bert raised her arms to the right in anticipation for Miami’s Milana Moisio’s serve at the start of the third set. The ball bounced off Moisio’s of Bert’s hands awkwardly and Riley Hoffman was forced to dive, barely keeping the possession alive.

But Naomi Franco was right there. With her left knee still on the floor, Franco performed a last-ditch effort to will the ball back over the net — straight into the path of Flormarie Heredia Colon.

Colon spiked the ball back to Syracuse’s side of the court and Bert dived, extending her left arm to send the ball back to Hoffman. Hoffman set up Polina Shemanova for a spike on the far sideline, but Savannah Vach and Janice Leao met her at the apex and the ball crashed down to the floor for Miami’s second point in the set.

Despite trading points back and forth for the majority of the second set, Miami (14-9, 7-5 Atlantic Coast) jumped out to score four more unanswered points to start the third, ultimately winning 25-17. The Hurricanes swept Syracuse (10-12, 6-6 ACC) in three sets to hand the Orange their eighth loss of the season and their third straight conference loss.

“I think we needed to be more consistent with our performance,” Syracuse head coach Bakeer Ganesharatnam said. “We need to increase those moments where we do good things and decrease those moments or periods where we struggle.”

In five days, SU will host Pittsburgh on Friday. With just six games left in the season, Ganesharatnam has stressed the importance of getting sufficient rest, especially given the nature of Syracuse’s smaller roster.

“We have to keep them (the players) in a certain rhythm going into the weekend,” Ganesharatnam said. But we’re going to do the best we can to keep everybody as fresh as possible so we can perform at a high level.”

Shemanova finished with a team-high 12 kills on the day with both Viktoriiya Lokhmanchuk and Naomi Franco chipping in with 10 apiece. Miami was led by Angela Grieve, who totaled a game-high 19 kills, while Heredia Colon contributed nine and Janice Leao added seven.

Hoffman led the Orange with 18 assists and Woodford had 12. But SU’s combined effort still fell six short of Miami’s Savannah Vach mark of 36 assists.

“It’s awesome when there are other hitters besides you who can take the load off and they’ve been really efficient today,” Shemanova said, explaining the offensive boost that Franco and Lokhmanchuk brought. “They did a great job today and I hope we continue doing that throughout the season. The more the better.”

On the defensive side, Raina Hughes continued to show her prowess for blocks, finishing with six. Franco added three and Shemanova etched on two. Although Miami bested Syracuse in almost every statistical category, the two teams had the same amount of digs with 39 each. Bert led the way for SU on that front with 14 and Yaidaliz Rosado had 12 for the Hurricanes.

Service errors were a major issue for the Orange as SU totaled eight failed serves — three of which came from Shemanova — but Ganesharatnam wasn’t too troubled with his team’s mistakes.

“One of the things we wanted to do against Miami was serve aggressively,” Ganesharatnam said. “Unfortunately there were a lot more errors than we liked, but that’s the risk you take.”

Attacking percentages were also a major factor of differentiation between the two sides. Despite Hughes’ defensive efforts, the Hurricanes still averaged a 27.5% kill success rate while SU produced a lowly 16.7%.

Syracuse looked alive and strong in the court. Coming off of a four-set loss to Florida State, the Orange pushed Miami until the very end of the first set. Trailing 24-19, SU strung together a three-point run after a Franco kill and two Hurricane attacking errors. However, a Heredia Colon spike, her third of the set, helped Miami clinch victory, 25-22.

Early in the second, neither team could find the edge over the other. Whenever Miami put points on the board, Syracuse had an answer.

But with the score knotted up at 14-14, the Hurricanes slowly pulled away. A kill by Grieve and two consecutive Shemanova attacking errors helped Miami score three straight unanswered points en route to a 25-19 win in the second set.