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Viktoriiya Lokhmanchuk served the ball. Miami was just one point away from handing the Orange their third straight loss. The score read 24-17. Lokhmanchuk’s hit was controlled by Angela Grieve, who sent a dig toward Savannah Vach. Grieve’s pass went slightly long, and Vach wasn’t able to provide the best set-up for Peyman Yardimci. Yardimci rose and hit, her attempt smothered by Syracuse duo Lauren Woodford and Bre Walp, but Miami scrambled to keep possession.
The ball fell to Vach, who set a ball behind her head, crosscourt, to Grieve. Positioned a couple steps away from the net, Grieve smashed the ball. Her hit intended for the SU backcourt, grazed the fingertips of Walp and Polina Shemanova before landing out of bounds for the final point of the game.
In its last road match of the season, Syracuse (11-16, 7-10 Atlantic Coast) fell to Miami (18-9, 11-5 ACC) on Friday, losing 3-0. This was SU’s third-straight loss in sweeping fashion and its seventh in the last 10 times out.
Lokhmanchuk led the Orange in kills with 14. She was the only SU player to finish with a double-digit total. Shemanova produced seven but totaled her lowest kill percentage of the season, finishing with more errors (8) than kills (7), topping her previous season-low that came against Pittsburgh two games ago. Naomi Franco added six kills.
Woodford had a team-high 27 assists but didn’t get much help. Shemanova came in second with just three, while no one else on the team could muster up a single assist.
The biggest storyline of the match was the service ace differential between the Hurricanes and the Orange. Miami tallied 10 aces while SU didn’t tally any. Alyssa Bert had a game-high of five reception errors while Lokhamnchuk tacked on three more, an issue that has proved to be a thorn in the side of this Syracuse team all season. Offensively, SU produced the same number of service errors as the Hurricanes with five. When the Orange did get the ball over the net, Miami played out from the back with ease and started their own attack.
Syracuse started well to open the match. Although the Orange were unable to string together many scoring runs, they kept the opening set close, eventually losing 25-21. The four-point differential after the first would be the closest SU would come to winning a set all evening.
In the second set, the Hurricanes jumped out to a 7-1 start and never looked back. With the score at 12-6, Miami scored six unanswered points before an attack error returned possession to Syracuse. By then, the set was already out of reach as Miami ended up winning, 25-18.
More of the same came in the third. Toward the middle of the third set, the Orange enjoyed a brief scoring run, chalking up five consecutive points to draw within three points of the Hurricanes. However, SU’s success was short-lived as Miami turned the tables immediately after, going on 6-0 run to re-extend their lead.
Grieve led the way for the Hurricanes with a game-high 19 kills and enjoyed a personal record of her own. With Miami’s 24th point in the third set, Grieve recorded kill No. 1000 to place tenth in program history. Flormarie Heredia Colon and Janice Leao contributed eight and four, respectively.
On top of setting Grieve up for her record-setting kill, Vach also set the Hurricanes up for their match-clinching point. Vach finished with a game-high 32 assists.
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