Abbey Szlanfucht and the 49er volleyball team will play their first season in the A10 next fall. |
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Volleyball Having Successful Spring Season So Far
April 12, 2005
Charlotte, N.C. - The Charlotte 49ers volleyball team opened its spring season on April 2, hosting a successful five-team home tournament in Halton Arena. Last weekend, the team traveled to Duke University.
In their home tournament, the 49ers opened the spring with a bang by winning five of eight games. The tournament format was two games to 30 points versus each opponent.
Charlotte split with ACC foe North Carolina, before taking both games against Wake Forest (also of the ACC). The 49ers defeated Winthrop 2-0, before losing a pair to the College of Charleston.
"I was really pleased with our defensive effort," said head coach Lisa Marston. "Splitting with North Carolina and beating Wake Forest, those are ACC schools that play at a very high level. That is a great accomplishment for us.
"We beat Winthrop in a close game, which showed we can win the tight ones. They had a great year last year and were regionally ranked. I think we just got tired versus Charleston and ended up playing without our libero which was a disadvantage. And we made some mistakes. But they won their conference last year, and they're a tough team."
The teams which competed at the tournament all had impressive resumes. Charlotte was one of the nation's most improved teams last season in terms of wins and losses, posting 19 victories overall. North Carolina finished 19-15 overall and were fifth in the ACC. The Tar Heels were a regionally-ranked team in 2004, along with Winthrop and College of Charleston.
Winthrop was the Big South Conference Tournament champion and advanced to the NCAA Tournament. They also defeated the 49ers during the 2004 regular season. College of Charleston won 26 matches en route to an NCAA appearance and a Southern Conference championship. Wake Forest won 13 matches overall.
Last weekend at the Duke spring tournament, the team's record wasn't as impressive but Coach Marston said the team learned some valuable lessons and found areas they needed to improve.
"At Duke, we didn't have a great day," Marston said. "Our ball control wasn't very good, which was a switch from last weekend. But I know we have good ball control because I've seen it already this spring. We lost to Wake in two close games, but we beat them last weekend, so that was disappointing. We couldn't pass and missed a lot of serves so we'll work on that.
"We beat Elon twice, and we lost to Duke twice. Duke had really good blocking, a really big blocker, and that was a good learning experience for us. We need to learn to play against that. We also split with East Carolina.
"But, this is just one day out of the whole spring. We had a really good weekend at home in our first spring outing, and I'm optimistic about playing Davidson this weekend."
The Davidson matchup that Marston talked about will be a tournament on Saturday, April 16. The tournament features the host school, as well as ACC foes Virginia and North Carolina State.
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