Eagles to Face First ACC Road Test

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – The Boston College volleyball team heads to North Carolina this weekend for a pair of ACC road matches, looking to improve upon the 12-2, 2-0 ACC record the Eagles have compiled to start the year.

By sweeping Clemson and claiming the four-set match against Georgia Tech last weekend, BC won both matches of the ACC-opening weekend for the first time since joining the league in 2005. Both matches were a battle, wins the Eagles earned.

"I think it just continues to build confidence," Kennedy said of the wins. "It was a good thing that we got off to a hot start in the first set against Clemson, we did it in the first set against Georgia Tech as well, and then we had a lull in both of those matches. We started off the second set against Clemson down quite a bit, but we had enough experience going through that in the preseason with the confidence to know that we can come back from that sort of situation.

"Georgia Tech, we dropped the third set and at that point, we could have gone one of two ways. We could have let the errors compound, but we stuck with it and we were resilient. We knew that they would come and punch us in the mouth at least once and we had to be able to bounce back from that, and we did."

BC's defense has played a large part in the Eagles' success, holding opponents to the third-lowest attack percentage (.134) in the nation. Junior libero Makenzie Morrison holds the fourth-most digs per set (4.26) among ACC individuals while sophomore Ally Mullen's 1.21 blocks per set and classmate Amaka Chukwujekwu's 1.20 blocks per set are tied for fifth and eighth, respectively, in the conference.

"Our middles usually hold down the fort pretty well," Kennedy said. "We get a lot of points out of them and they do a good job affecting the other team's hitters and they understand the scouting reports very well … and Makenzie has really been our little energizer bunny back there. She's always up to make a dig, she makes a play and people rally around her and get excited for her."

Looking ahead, both Duke and Wake Forest sit 0-2 in ACC play after each fell to Miami and Florida State in the opening weekend of conference action. Duke is 6-5 on the year while Wake Forest is 5-9 overall. Regardless, it's still early in the conference season and the Eagles aren't taking the weekend off.

"Those teams were both picked above us in the preseason poll, probably for a reason," Kennedy said. "We've certainly got our work cut out for us. We're not going to go in there thinking they're two matches that we should win certainly, but they're two matches that we feel like we should be able to compete in and see what happens."

The Eagles will face Duke on Friday at 6:30 p.m. at Cameron Indoor Stadium before meeting Wake Forest on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Reynolds Gymnasium. Both matches will be broadcast on ACC Network Extra.

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Players Mentioned

Amaka Chukwujekwu

Makenzie Morrison

Ally Mullen