Gosia Wlaszczuk fidgeted around the Syracuse sideline in the fourth set. She sat at the end of a line of standing teammates, taking long sips out of a water bottle.

After a Clemson point, she moved closer to head coach Leonid Yelin, sitting on a chair at the end of the bench. After Clemson scored a few more points, she found a chair right next to Yelin.

All the while, Wlaszczuk kept the water bottle in hand, in an attempt to recover from three sets of battling Clemson’s early leads. She came out for nearly a third of the fourth set and Yelin said he could see the exhaustion written on her face and in her body language.

“It’s the first and last time I heard (she needed a rest) from her. She’s the kind of player, she’s going to die on the floor,” Yelin said.

SU (8-16, 1-11 Atlantic Coast) and Clemson (17-9, 5-7) traded blows all game, but Clemson outlasted the Orange for a 3-1 win. SU won the first set, 25-23, and Clemson took the last three 25-19, 25-20 and 25-20. The Tigers stole SU’s energy, burying SU with runs at the beginning of sets and forcing the Orange to exert energy fighting back.

“I think that hurts everybody, but… I think all it takes is one point to then get over that,” Lindsay McCabe said about getting behind early.

In the first set, the Tigers had just polished off a 6-2 run and its bench roared, each player cheering on its teammates. On SU’s bench Syracuse Yelin had his head in his hands. But SU fought back.

Three straight SU points finished the set, 25-23. After SU took the lead for good on a McCabe block, Leah Levert whipped her towel around her head, pushing her team on.

Clemson again sped to a 6-2 lead in the second set. Wlaszczuk committed an attack error giving Clemson its fifth straight point, she ran her hands through her hair and looked down, visibly frustrated. The run continued despite a Yelin timeout and Clemson took a 13-4 lead.

“Most of the time when (a) team makes (an) adjustment and it takes too long for (the) other team to make adjustment, that’s when you’re losing three, four, five, six points,” said Yelin.

Eventually SU made its adjustments and countered as McCabe grunted and planted a spike in the court to end the run. Smith smashed a spike of her own, bending a Clemson player back over her heels and bringing SU as close as 16-12. Unlike the first set, Clemson pulled away for good, winning the set 25-19.

The third set read like the first two. Clemson took a 6-2 lead, but this time won the first five points. And like the first two sets, SU climbed out of its hole. McCabe, and Smith came back with kills, and so did Monika Salkute, who punctuated a 5-1 SU run to tie the set at 7-7.

​”People will get stuck and we will be struggling, we just need one point,” Wlaszczuk said.

After trading points, Clemson pulled away again. Uattara misplayed the last ball of the third set and Clemson won the set 25-20.

SU’s energy remained high in the fourth, but physically SU was tired. With SU down 24-20, Smith jumped, hardly as high as she had earlier, plucked the ball from the air, but sent it into the waiting blockers’ hands, ending the game 25-20.

Continually fighting through a deficit tired out SU and finally cost the Orange in the last set.

“We know if we didn’t have that point deficit at the beginning,” McCabe said, “that it might be a different story at the end of the game.”

Published on November 8, 2014 at 12:54 am

Contact Chris: cjlibona@syr.edu | @ChrisLibonati