Despite a night riddled with imperfections, Virginia Tech volleyball overcame its recent struggles against Notre Dame, outlasting the Fighting Irish in a five-set thriller (25-23 VT, 25-22 ND, 25-19 VT, 25-16 ND, 15-12 VT) Friday evening at Cassell Coliseum.
FINAL | Virginia Tech 3, Notre Dame 2 For the first time since 2020, Virginia Tech volleyball has five wins in ACC play. Came with plenty of attrition in this one — #Hokies allowed 51 kills to the trio of Sydney Helmers, Mae Kordas and Chichi Nnaji — but VT got it done. Stats: https://t.co/b5FCr6dHe1
— Thomas Hughes (@thomashughes_05) November 7, 2026
The victory marked Tech’s first over the Fighting Irish (5-17, 2-11 ACC) since Oct. 20, 2023. The Hokies (8-14, 5-8 ACC) survived 60 kills from Notre Dame’s quartet of outside hitter Sydney Helmers (20 kills), opposite/outside hitter Mae Kordas (19), outside hitter Chichi Nnaji (12) and middle blocker Anna Bjork (nine).
Virginia Tech's victory, however, was far from a clean-cut affair. The Hokies struggled to maintain momentum throughout the evening, following a convincing third-set victory with a nine-point defeat in the fourth. When the match reached its most consequential moments, Tech found the rhythm it had struggled to sustain.
And after four sets, it appeared as if momentum was on Notre Dame’s side. The Fighting Irish scored six of the fourth frame’s final eight points to stave off defeat and force a winner-take-all fifth set.
Virginia Tech began the final frame with its back against the wall, surrendering three consecutive points to open the fifth set. But while the Hokies buckled, they did not break. Tech responded with five unanswered points, four coming on kills, to seize a 5-3 advantage.
Junior outside hitter Reese Hazelton delivered the kill that gave Virginia Tech its first lead of the set, and although the Fighting Irish pulled even at five and again at six, they couldn't muster the go-ahead punch needed to regain control.
The Hokies moved within striking distance of victory with a five-point rally that included consecutive kills from senior outside hitter Destiny Walker, taking a 12-7 advantage.
Notre Dame trimmed the deficit to 14-12 following a Hazelton set that dropped just in front of Walker and a Walker kill attempt that sailed narrowly past the right corner. The Fighting Irish's ensuing serve, however, failed to clear the net, bringing an anticlimactic end to the contest and handing Tech its fourth victory in its last six matches.
Friday marked Hazelton’s seventh double-double of the season; the 6-foot-2 pin hitter finished with a team-high 17 kills and 14 digs on a .368 hitting percentage. It’s the fourth time this season Hazelton has produced 15 or more kills and the most since her career-high 26 against Green Bay on Sept. 12.
Hazelton’s efforts were adjoined by Walker’s 13-kill, 12-dig double-double and sophomore pin hitter Adeline Hundl’s 12-kill performance. Hundl’s 12 kills marked her third-most in a single game, trailing only Syracuse on Oct. 25 (14) and Coppin State on Aug. 29 (13).
The decisive fifth set followed four frames in which neither team could establish lasting control. But while Friday's contest was far from a masterclass in consistency, the Hokies ultimately found a way to prevail and in doing so, they reached a milestone that had eluded the program for six years.
Virginia Tech's victory marked its fifth ACC win of the season, the first time the Hokies have reached that threshold since 2020.
The first set was the most contentious, featuring 13 tied scores and seven lead changes. Neither team led by more than two until Notre Dame took a lead off an attack error from Virginia Tech middle blocker Georgia Trexler. Virginia Tech then went on a 5-0 run, the first four points of which came off Fighting Irish attack errors.
Mishler rose uncontested in the middle of the court and hammered home a kill, putting the Hokies one kill shy of clinching the set. Though Notre Dame tabulated two points off attack errors to thin the deficit to 24-23, Nnaji's ensuing attack sailed just wide, giving Virginia Tech a 25-23 opening-set victory.
The second set didn’t follow quite the same script. Virginia Tech trailed by as many as five in the middle goings of the set and while it rallied with a late three-point run to slice the deficit to 23-22, Notre Dame countered with a Helmers kill and a service ace from Kordas to even the match at one set apiece.
Virginia Tech roared back in the third frame, taking advantage with a 4-1 run that pushed its advantage to 16-10. From there, the Hokies rarely relented, surviving Notre Dame’s attempt at a comeback to claim the third frame 25-19.
That set up the fourth set where Notre Dame bounced back 25-16 and Virginia Tech’s subsequent re-response. The Hokies won't have much time to celebrate Friday's victory. No. 3 Louisville, a perennial national championship contender ranked fourth in the RPI as of Nov. 1, visits Cassell Coliseum on Sunday.
While the Cardinals present a considerably more daunting challenge than Notre Dame, Sunday's matchup offers Virginia Tech an opportunity to measure its recent progress against one of the nation's premier programs.
While a win against the Cardinals is unlikely — after all, Louisville, a perennial NCAA Championship contender, is ranked fourth in the RPI as of Nov. 1 — Virginia Tech can still learn from how it stacks up against the nation’s best, using it to better handle its tests against more manageable competition. The Hokies’ Sunday game against the Cardinals is set for 1 p.m. ET on ACC Network Extra.
