Carlotta Oggioni and the rest of the Terrapins celebrate a point during a 3-0 loss at Penn State on Saturday, Nov. 8.
She rose up to meet the ball floating in front of her. Outside hitter Emily Fraik already had five kills in the set, but she tried for one more on set point in the third frame with the Terps trailing No. 11 Nebraska 2-0.
The Terps had compiled an impressive string of play, making two errors on .423 hitting in the set, and they were just about to close out a win against their premier opponent. And Fraik had a lot to do with it.
She made zero errors in the set to go with two blocks. And she spiked that ball on set point to give the Terps their third set victory over a ranked opponent this season, pushing her kill total to six in the frame.
In the face of another loss in straight sets, the Terrapins volleyball team displayed their resilience again before losing to the No. 11 Cornhuskers, 3-1.
“Nebraska didn’t play as well as they usually play in Game 3 coupled with the fact that we didn’t quit,” coach Steve Aird said. “That was the formula to winning a game.”
Errors on both teams kept the first set tight as Nebraska got out to an early 10-7 lead. The Cornhuskers went on a 7-2 run, though, to build a comfortable 17-9 cushion.
They continued to dominate the frame until set point, when the Terps rallied off four points before falling, 25-17.
The second set followed a nearly identical path as Nebraska took another 10-7 lead and again went on a 7-2 run to bury the Terps. But there wouldn’t be a late push the second time. The Terps went into the break down 2-0 after dropping the frame 25-14.
“Nebraska, they’re 11th in the country, they played awfully well out of the gate,” Aird said. “They played really clean in the first two games, I think they made seven errors. But then in the third game they made a lot of uncharacteristic errors, and our kids played well.”
After intermission, the Terps, the No. 13 team in the Big Ten, were down 2-0 to perennial powerhouse Nebraska.
But the Terps made Nebraska work for every point. They took the first point of the frame and ran away with it, never relinquishing the lead.
“We had pretty good balance,” Aird said. “We had a lot of people trying to take some swings, it wasn’t just [outside hitter Ashleigh Crutcher], which happens to us a lot because she has such a good arm.”
The team as a whole only had two miscues on attacks, compared with the Cornhuskers’ nine. They continued pouring it on through the set on their way to a 25-18 victory.
In the fourth set, the Terps hung within striking distance for most of the early portion of the frame. But after pulling the deficit to 15-13, Nebraska rattled off another 7-2 streak en route to a 25-18 set win to close out the match.
But while the Terps left the court defeated once again, for they took home one set and a hint of optimism.
“I told them at the start of the year there weren’t going to be a lot of wins on the table,” Aird said. “It’s about the person you’re becoming, the player you’re becoming. … That’s going to lead to long-term success.”
