Of the words used to describe the 1991 North Carolina volleyball squad, "inconsistent" is by far the most common. While exceeding expecations on some ocassions and falling short of the standard on others, the Tar Heels finished third in the Atlantic Coast Conference standings with a 4-3 record and compiled an 18-15 overall ledger.

"One of the things that occured last year that we didn't always have the consistency we wanted from the outside hitters," explains Coach Sagula. "The strength of the team was the right side, the left side was its weakness and the middle sort of held its own. Our serving was strong and we were pretty solid defensively most of the time."

The right side was anchored by junior setter Amy Peistrup, a Second-Team All-South and First-team All-ACC selection, and junior Joanna Sahm who lead the Tar Heels in hitting percentage and kills per game. Peistrup and junior outside hitter Natalie Andrew each tallied nine services aces during a single match to tie for the school record and the team posted the season best single-match performace among all Division I NCAA teams with 24 aces against LaSalle on Sept. 28.Freshman Sarah Ward led several young middle hitters/blockers who all gained experience that will be valuable for the upcoming years.

"One of our goals was to win 20 matches and we fell short of that," says Sagula. "We did fairly well against several of the top teams we played, but ther were two or three teams that we should have beaten and didn't. We had some problems being up and down, but never really fell into a long losing streak, which is important."

The Tar Heels pushed out to a quick start by winning the UNC Volleyball Preview and claimed a 3-2 win over Texas-Arlington at home. Carolina rebound from three straight losses at the New Mexico State Hilton Volleyball Classic the following weekend to place second at the Ohio State Classic by defeating Loyola Marymount and losing to 16th ranked Ohio State 3-1 in the finals.

A 3-0 win over Florida State on Oct. 12 began a string of five straight victories including wins over NC State and Alabama and was the longest winning or losing streak of the year. The Tar Heels were 10-3 through their last 13 regular season mathces before a first-round ACC Tournament loss at the hands of the Seminoles.

"We played well down the stretch with the exceptation of the ACC Tournament match," says Sagula. "Obviously, we would have liked to play for the championship. I thinke for the most part, through, everything started to fall into place and we were able to create a foundation that we can build upon for the '92 season."