Volleyball hopes to break losing streak

The East Carolina University volleyball team will travel to New Orleans, Louisiana and Memphis, Tennessee to take on Tulane University and University of Memphis this weekend.

The Pirates (12-8; AAC 4-5) will face off with the Green Wave (17-7; AAC 5-4) on Friday at 8 p.m. hoping to break their four game losing streak, followed by the Tigers (10-11; AAC 3-6) at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Playing better, limiting errors and going back to the fun of playing is what head coach Julie Torbett thinks will propel the team to break the streak.

“We are using this (breaking our four game losing streak) as motivation going into our next games,” sophomore right side Bri Wood said. “We are young still and have a lot of learning and growing to do.”

In conference standings, the University of Central Florida (18-3; AAC 9-0) sits at No. 1 followed by the University of Cincinnati (18-5; AAC 8-1) at No. 2. ECU currently sits at No. 8 out of 12 teams, but Torbett is not concerned because she believes that from rank four and down, anyone can win on any given day.

“USF was the one that I was pretty disappointed that we didn’t pull out,” Torbett said. “The other ones I thought we played some good volleyball in there so i’m just going to focus on that and extend those streaks of good volleyball and then the win streak will come back and everybody will be happy.”

Even though the team lost its most recent game against USF, some players were the driving force of the team.

Sophomore outside hitter Sydney Kleinman still managed to have the most kills on the team at 20, the most aces at three and 13 digs. Wood was another outstanding player with 12 kills, two aces and the most digs at 17.

“I feel like I had so many kills because my setter was doing a great job,” Kleinman said. “I felt like our connections were really good the whole game and it’s a team sport. Hopefully the digs are good, the sets are good and we can all go us and kill the ball this weekend.”

With the Pirates sitting near the bottom of the standings in the AAC, Wood said she’s looking forward to getting out there and playing the way her team has shown to be capable of in recent memory.

“We just have another opportunity to go out there and so people what we can do so they can stop doubting us,” Wood said.