Despite heroics from junior Destiny Cox throughout the match, the North Carolina volleyball team fell short to No. 14 Duke, losing the match 3-1.
UNC played two matches against Duke this weekend, replacing the two postponed matches against Virginia that were originally scheduled for Friday and Sunday. The match against the Blue Devils on Friday resulted in a 3-1 upset victory.
Joe Sagula, who is in his 31st season as UNC's head coach, had nothing but praise for Cox’s performance.
“Destiny Cox had a great match," Sagula said. "We want Destiny to be a work horse, so we’re going to take that as a positive that we can get her the ball a lot."
Cox finished the match with 19 kills, a season high for her. She also tallied three blocks in the loss. First-year Maylen Mitrovich also had an impressive showing, racking up 23 assists and 13 digs for her third double-double of the season.
Regardless of these standout performances, Sagula said he wasn't pleased with the overall outcome of the match — North Carolina only won one out of the four sets played.
“Our rhythm was off," Sagula said. "Our passing was up and down. We became one-dimensional. We did not do a good job of getting the ball to our middle-hitters tonight and score like we did (Friday)."
Sagula said the Tar Heels would evaluate their shortcomings on Sunday to learn how they can improve as a unit moving forward.
“Kaya Merkler, Amanda Phegley, Aristea Tontai, they got the ball, but Duke did a good job defending them and we didn’t have a B-plan for them,” Sagula said. “Perhaps the coaches needed to do some other type of planning, but we never adjusted enough. Realizing that we weren’t going to score as easily as we did (on Friday), that put some pressure on our outsides, and our outsides really did not score as well as they did (on Friday).”
