Tar Heels claim championship at Aggie Invitational

It was clear this weekend that a trip to the West Coast agreed with the North Carolina volleyball team.

It wasn’t the beaches and sunshine that appealed to the players, though. It was the Aggie Invitational, hosted by UC Davis, where the Tar Heels went 3-0 to claim the championship.

On Friday, North Carolina (5-1) started its first match of the tournament against Santa Clara in dominating fashion, using a 7-0 run to claim the first set 25-14.

The Tar Heels continued to pressure the Broncos in the second set, coming away with another convincing win — 25-13.

But UNC couldn’t keep the same intensity going into the next sets, allowing Santa Clara to win both the third and fourth before North Carolina was able to take the match with a 15-10 win in the fifth set.

Coach Joe Sagula said he believed many things led UNC to falter in the team’s first match of the tournament.

“Our passing really broke down, (and) our defense was not well disciplined,” Sagula said. “We started overplaying balls, we started not being in the right position, we started guessing.”

Both Sagula and senior setter Cora Harms, who is from California, agreed that the biggest reason for the close call against Santa Clara was a lack of focus.

“We lost a little bit of our focus when it came to doing the little things, and that meant we weren’t playing at the level that we should’ve been playing at,” Harms said.

But UNC’s main strength — blocking ­­— remained consistent. The team combined for 19 total blocks throughout the five sets.

“On the positive end, we found out that we could come back and play very well,” he said. “Even if we weren’t doing well in the third and fourth set, we got back to doing well in the fifth set.”

While it was a good lesson for the young team to learn, the Tar Heels won’t need to apply it in their next match against Utah on Saturday.

Even though it’s still early in the season, Sagula said he thought the team played their best game of the year against the Utes.

The Tar Heels swept Utah 3-0 (25-17, 25-19, 25-16), flexing both their offensive and defensive muscles and racking up eight service aces, 47 kills and 48 digs as a team.

That dominance continued into North Carolina’s final match of the weekend against tournament host UC Davis where the Tar Heels once again won in three sets to take first place in the event.

Sagula said that the differences in UNC’s play between Friday and Saturday was attributed to better defense.

“Our defensive adjustments were very disciplined, and that put us in a really good position to dig the ball better,” he said. “And because our defense was good, our transition game and attack were much better.”

Harms said she was happy with the way the team worked together throughout the weekend, but said there’s still room for improvement.

“I think we played good through some tough games,” she said.

“We just need to worry about our play on our side of the net instead of focusing on what the other team is doing. If we do that, I think we’ll do very well this season.”

Contact the desk editor at sports@dailytarheel.com.