Eagles Continue Road Swing at Virginia and No. 8 Pittsburgh

Friday, October 5

Charlottesville, VA

7:00PM

Boston College

Virginia

Photo by: John Quackenbos

Eagles Continue Road Swing at Virginia and No. 8 Pittsburgh

October 04, 2018 | Volleyball

BC to face first ranked opponent of the season

By: Athletic Communications

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – The Boston College volleyball team faces its toughest challenge to date this weekend, traveling to Virginia on Friday, Oct. 5 and No. 8 Pittsburgh on Sunday, Oct. 7 to continue ACC action.

Virginia is 4-10 through the season and sits 0-4 in conference play, but head coach Jason Kennedy noted that the Cavaliers' record may not reflect the whole story. Three of Virginia's losses came to teams that were ranked or receiving votes in the AVCA Coaches Poll while another four came at the hands of teams above 100 in the RPI. Pitt, on the other hand, is one of two undefeated teams left in the nation at 15-0, winning more than half of its matches in three sets.

"Virginia is a good team, their record probably doesn't speak to how good they are and they play well at home," Kennedy said. "Pitt is a top-eight team in the country right now and undefeated, they're solid all the way around. They're not all seniors either, so they're going to have a couple people back year after year here so we've got to find a way to learn as much as we can from both of those matches so that we can kind of improve upon results."

Last weekend the Eagles (12-4, 2-2 ACC) traveled to Duke and Wake Forest, falling in three sets for the first time all season to the Blue Devils before dropping a five-set match in extra points to the Deacons. Kennedy keyed defense as a major sticking point, as the Eagles were out blocked 24-10 on the weekend.

"We had an opportunity early in set one and two against Duke where we got out to five- or six-point leads in both sets and couldn't sustain that," Kennedy said. "Against Wake Forest we were able to battle back, we had a couple match points in the fifth set and just kind of checked out it seemed, mentally, and weren't able to close any of those sets or either match.

"We need to defend better to give ourselves more opportunities and we know that we're not going to have the same height that a lot of the teams that we do play here in the ACC, but we have to find a way to be physical enough to take things away and be able to make teams work for their kills."

The Eagles will match up with Virginia at 7 p.m. on Friday in Memorial Gym, then meet Pittsburgh for a 1 p.m. match on Sunday at Fitzgerald Field House. Both matches will be broadcast on ACC Network Extra.