While her team defeated Dartmouth on Sept. 8 in four sets, Anastasiya Gorelina played in one set and recorded zero kills. Then, her production took off.

“I don’t know what changed inside of me, but it was like…” Gorelina said. Then she snapped her fingers. “I needed to be more aggressive.”

Since that game, she’s caught fire. In Syracuse’s past seven games, Gorelina has had at least nine kills, including a career-high 20 against Boston College on Sept. 20. In her first eight games of the season, she never had more than four. The junior outside hitter’s contributions have mirrored SU’s recent winning run, too, as the Orange (9-6,1-1 Atlantic Coast) have captured five of its last seven.

Gorelina’s recent uptick in productivity is because she is finally healthy, SU head coach Leonid Yelin said. She had problems with her back all throughout childhood and into college, he added, especially her sophomore year.

Despite Gorelina’s apparently ailing back, she played in 105 sets last season, tied for the third-most on the team. In all but one game, she played at least three sets. In the first eight games of 2017, Gorelina participated in three sets or more just three times. Now, after a period of rest, she is playing the best volleyball of her career.

“I love seeing my teammates succeed,” Kendra Lukacs said. “It fuels me as well.”

Lukacs, a fellow outside hitter, has had ten or more kills in each of her last six games. She, too, notched a career-high in kills against BC with 18. The sophomore credits her chemistry with Gorelina as to why the two are both having such recent success.

“I think we’re different kinds of hitters,” Lukacs said, “so I think it’s fun to feed off what the other can do.”

Published on September 27, 2017 at 10:34 pm

Contact David: ddschnei@syr.edu