North Carolina gets its first true heavyweight road test of the season Wednesday night, traveling to Lexington for a matchup with No. 3 Kentucky.
The Tar Heels are 4-0, while Kentucky enters at 5-1. The match will air on SEC Network, with first serve set for 6 PM.
This is the kind of game that can tell Carolina a lot about where it stands early. A win would give the Tar Heels their first road victory over a top-10 team since Nov. 6, 2016, when they beat No.
10 Florida State. It would also be Carolina’s first win over a top-three opponent since knocking off No.
2 Wisconsin on Sept. 9, 2016, and the program’s first-ever top-five road win.
Bridget Malone has already given Carolina a major jolt. She delivered the best match of her career Friday night against Colorado State, finishing with a career-high 23 kills and adding four blocks in a five-set Tar Heel win. Through four matches, she leads the team with 49 kills and 3.50 kills per set.
The Tar Heels are walking into a brutal stretch, and it starts now. After Kentucky, they’ll face Vanderbilt and Nebraska, with Nebraska ranked No. 1 in the latest AVCA Top 25. Carolina travels to Kentucky and Nebraska and will meet Vanderbilt in New York City.
So far, though, the season has opened with sharp execution on both sides of the ball. Carolina swept opening weekend, then followed it by hitting an eye-popping .470 against UNCW on Sunday, its most efficient offensive showing since Nov.
11, 2016. The defense was just as suffocating, holding UNCW to a -.010 hitting percentage, the lowest since Boston College hit -.010 on Oct.
21, 2016. Through two matches, UNC is allowing opponents to hit just .055, which ranks second nationally early on.
The Tar Heels are also carrying a familiar ranking. Carolina has been No. 19 in five straight AVCA polls between Nov. 24, 2025 and Aug.
31, 2026. Before this run, the program had only been ranked No. 19 twice in AVCA Top 25 history, on Nov. 4, 2013 and Aug.
10, 2016. The five-poll stretch at the same spot is Carolina’s longest since it was No. 7 in five straight polls from Nov. 17, 2014 to Aug.
12, 2015.
A big reason for the optimism around this team is what came back. Carolina did not lose anyone to the transfer portal for the second straight year, and the roster is loaded with returning production.
Of last season’s 1,536 kills, 1,535 are back. All 342 blocks return, along with 90.2% of aces and 69.7% of digs.
Safi Hampton and Chelsea Thorpe were both named to the Preseason All-ACC Team ahead of the 2026 season.
The leadership group is made up of Zoe Behrendt, Chelsea Thrope, and Sadie Swift.
The schedule only gets tougher from here. Carolina will face eight different teams that reached the NCAA Tournament last season, including national runner-up Kentucky, national semifinalist Pitt, and 2025 overall No. 1 seed Nebraska, all on the road.
The Tar Heels will also travel to SMU, host Stanford and Georgia Tech, and play Louisville and Miami both home and away. In all, Carolina will face six teams in the AVCA Preseason Top-11 across seven matches, with five of those coming away from home and two at home.
There’s also a built-in connection in the locker room. Incoming transfers Laynie Smith and Emily Bobbitt both played together at Triangle Volleyball Club, the same club where Erin Curtis, Lindley Miller, and Carly Markham also competed before college. Erin Curtis’ father, Jason, co-founded the club, and head coach Mike Schall previously served as an associate director there before coming to Chapel Hill.
Schall is entering year four with the Tar Heels, looking to keep the climb going. Carolina is in the preseason AVCA Top-25 Coaches Poll for the first time since 2017 and was picked fifth in the ACC Preseason Coaches Poll.
Schall went 13-14 in his first season, then pushed the program to 23-8 in 2024 and its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2021. Last season, UNC went 22-9 and picked up another first-round NCAA Tournament win.
Now the Tar Heels are aiming for three straight NCAA Tournament appearances for the first time since a seven-year run from 2010 through 2016.
The roster also carries plenty of athletic lineage. Jackie Taylor’s father, Sean, played football at Miami from 2001-2003, was part of the 2001 BCS National Championship team, and later went No. 5 overall in the 2004 NFL Draft to Washington, where he became a two-time Pro Bowl selection in 2006 and 2007.
Her mother, Jackie García, was a midfielder on Miami’s women’s soccer team. Erin Curtis’ father, Jason, was a captain on Santa Clara’s men’s volleyball team, while her sisters Emily and Maggie played at Villanova and Santa Clara, respectively.
Julia Bohlinger’s father, Rob, played football at Wyoming from 1993-98 and later with the Carolina Panthers. Carson Overbeck’s mother, Carla, was a three-time All-America and four-time NCAA champion on UNC’s soccer team from 1986-89, captained the 1995 U.S.
World Cup squad that reached the semifinals, and captained the 1996 U.S. Women’s Soccer Olympic Team that won gold.
She is now an assistant coach for Duke women’s soccer.
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UNC Fans Just Got A Painful Reminder About Bryce Baker
Bryce Bakers first taste of college game action did not come in Carolina blue, but it still had to sting for North Carolina fans who remembered how highly regarded the quarterback prospect once was. After not seeing the field during his true freshman season in Chapel Hill, Baker transferred to Virginia Tech and stepped into the spotlight in the Hokies season opener, giving the program a glimpse of why he drew attention in the first place.
Coming in to relieve the starting quarterback, Baker looked composed from the start, finishing 10 of 12 for 127 yards and throwing his first career touchdown pass. Virginia Tech won comfortably, and Bakers debut was the kind of clean, confident outing that only sharpened the what-could-have-been feeling for Tar Heels supporters watching from afar. [Read more 🡒]
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Clemson, which North Carolina is set to face on September 19, has already taken a loss to LSU, while Miami has opened the season well behind quarterback Darian Mensah and Duke has shown enough offensive spark with Walker Eget to stay relevant in the mix. For the Tar Heels, the timing is unforgiving - conference play arrives with little margin for error, and the next few weeks will say plenty about whether this team can steady itself before the ACC race gets away. [Read more 🡒]