Syracuse drops home-opener to Wake Forest in 4 sets

Midway through the fourth set, freshman Marina Markova rose above the net and smashed a ball towards the Wake Forest front line. As Markova fell to the ground, two Wake Forest middle blockers sprung up and repelled the ball, slamming it into Markova’s face. The block elicited joyous cheers from Wake Forest’s bench and fans.

Syracuse’s lead was slipping away. The Orange had led Wake Forest 24-21. Down two sets to one at that point, it looked like SU was on its way to a fifth set tiebreaker.

But the Demon Deacons regained momentum through their middle blockers, who forced three attacking errors from Polina Shemanova in the final four points of the match.

After nine straight road games to open the season, Syracuse (4-6, 1-2 Atlantic Coast) lost to Wake Forest (11-3, 1-2), 3-1, in its home opener on Friday night in the Women’s Building. Despite having more kills, assists and digs than Wake Forest, Syracuse’s errors, especially its 15 service errors, were the difference in the match, assistant coach Derryk Williams said.

“(It was) very disappointing when you are the best hitter on the front line and you cannot finish the game,” SU head coach Leonid Yelin said. “That’s something every player has to understand: Every year you have to step up and prove it.”

The errors and Wake Forest’s dominant play up front overshadowed the play of Ella Saada and Elena Karakasi. Karakasi recorded a career-high 41 assists, displaying her chemistry with Saada, who set her career-high with 21 kills.

“We expect (Saada) to be this kind of player,” Yelin said. “What it’s really showing this year, compared to last year, I can see she has accepted to be a leader.”

The first set was emblematic of Syracuse’s struggles throughout the match, with five service errors in the set, including one from Markova to end it. Williams said the errors were not down to talent issues, but mental lapses that meant SU’s serves were often misplaced and not hit at the pace the coaching staff wanted to see.

“At a certain point what are we (coaches) going to do?” Williams said. “I can’t control her body, all we can be like is ‘Hey, you know what you got to do, we do it every day in practice, so come and do what you need to do.’”

In the second set, Kendra Lukacs made her season debut, following a long layoff from a shoulder injury. After struggling to contend with Wake Forest’s front line in the first set, Yelin removed middle blockers Dana Gardner and Izzy Plummer from the lineup, shifting versatile outside hitter Yuliia Yastrub to the middle. The changes seemed to give SU some momentum, as they ended the set on a 7-0 run.

Despite the improvement in the second set, it didn’t continue into the third. After Markova failed to deal with a Wake Forest serve early in the set, Yelin got up from his seat and shouted at Markova. Throughout the match, Wake Forest seemed to target Markova and Lukacs on defense, who was playing at libero due to senior Aliah Bowllan’s ankle injury.

Still, Lukacs recorded 10 digs, second-most on the team behind Shemanova’s 12, and Yelin praised Lukacs’ performance. Throughout the day and in the hours leading up to the match, Yelin wasn’t sure if Lukacs would play.

“She played really good and we are so happy to have her back,” Yelin said. “I did not expect her to play at this level because she did not play or practice for so long.”

Wake Forest comfortably took the third set 25-17, following more strong play from their front line. On the day, Wake Forest recorded 22 blocking assists, compared to just 10 for the Orange, who have struggled to replace last year’s middle blockers Santita Ebangwese and Amber Witherspoon.

Shemanova’s inconsistent play throughout the match, 17 kills to go along with 12 errors, peaked in the fourth set. Early in the set, Shemanova’s deft touch of the ball at the net into a gaping hole in the heart of the Wake Forest defense was met with approval from middle blockers Gardner and Abby Casiano, who mimicked Shemanova’s finger-roll technique on the bench.

Her aggressiveness at the net proved to be Syracuse’s undoing in the end. On her three attacking errors to end the match, Yelin said Shemanova was thinking too much about her ball placement, instead of focusing on her fundamentals, which resulted in a sub-par jump and a poor connection with the ball.

“It’s a lot of new people,” Yelin said. “And it is going to take time to figure out who has to step up.”