“We are very fortunate to be in the position we’re in,” said Coach Joe Sagula. “But we have to respect that every team we play now is going to give us their best match.”
And that’s what the Tar Heels got in both of their games this weekend.
UNC (24-2, 15-1 ACC) started its last road trip of the regular season at Notre Dame (6-22, 3-14 ACC) on Friday and finished at Louisville Sunday. And although it swept the Fighting Irish, the team wasn’t completely prepared for the tough fight the opponents would put up.
“I think the first two sets were a little rough,” said redshirt senior opposite hitter Chaniel Nelson. “Fortunately for us, even when we’re not playing our best, we’re still a pretty good team.”
And “pretty good” might be a bit of an understatement, as North Carolina finished the match in three sets (25-23, 25-20, 25-16) with 39 kills, 44 digs and a .326 hitting percentage against a feisty Notre Dame squad that certainly presented its challenges.
“A lot of the players said that they weren’t satisfied,” Sagula said. “We made some mistakes, and even though we were playing well enough that we were dominating, we just wanted to finish hard.”
North Carolina and Notre Dame exchanged points for much of the third set, but a kill from senior outside hitter Lauren McAdoo to stretch the score to 16-13 allowed the Tar Heels to get away until an attack error by Notre Dame ended the match.
“Notre Dame is a good, respectable team, even if they’re not top 10,” said junior outside hitter Leigh Andrew. “But we had to treat them like one. Mentally we had to come into this game like that, and we couldn’t just overlook them.”
