| TOP OF SITE | TOP OF ISSUE | TOP OF SECTION |
| PREVIOUS STORY | NEXT STORY |
|
Volleyball team heads to College Park, Md., to compete for ACC title By Matthew Memberg Fill in your own blanks ATLANTA November 20, 1998
 The Georgia Tech volleyball team closed out the 1998 regular season one week ago with a two-game road trip to the Research Triangle. The Jackets smacked around last place N.C. State on Thursday and took a beating of their own the next night at first place North Carolina.
Entering Thursday night's match, N.C. State was 0-14 in the ACC. Tech showed the Wolfpack no mercy and beat them in three straight games, 15-8, 15-4, 15-12.
"Beating the last-place team in the league was absolutely essential for us," said head coach Shelton Collier. "Our team needs to be able to do that."
Nine Tech players registered kills in the match; junior Amanda Medrow led the team with eight. Senior Amanda Sabo provided 34 assists, and senior Aimee Boulet anchored the defense with a team-high eight digs.
Tech's best performance as a team came in game two when the Jackets tallied 15 kills and no errors on only 25 attempts to finish with a .600 hitting percentage.
N.C. State was plagued by errors for the entire match. The Wolfpack blundered to 28 errors, while collecting 40 kills and 33 digs.
On Friday night, the tables were completely turned on the Jackets. North Carolina handily beat the Jackets, 15-2, 15-8, 15-5.
Tech was in the lead 2-0 in game one, and the score was knotted at seven in game two, but the Tarheels squashed the Jackets' hopes with knockout punches of 15 and eight points, respectively. Tech did not have a chance in game three, as North Carolina built up a 9-1 lead and coasted to a three-game sweep.
Junior Sara McKee had a busy night, earning team highs in both kills (nine) and digs (11). Freshman Maja Pachale contributed eight kills and eight digs to the cause. Sabo had 35 assists, and freshman Kyleen Bell had four block assists.
The win over N.C. State was Tech's 22nd of the season and the loss against North Carolina was Tech's 11th. The team's conference record of 10-6 was fourth best in the ACC.
Though it may have been somewhat of a disappointing season for the team, several Tech players had terrific seasons. Senior Carla Gartner was a first team all-ACC honoree at the right side hitter position. Senior Aimee Boulet was Tech's second first team all-ACC selection; she received the honor for her superb year as the team's defensive specialist. Tech volleyball will truly miss these two outstanding players next year.
Also honored were freshmen Maja Pachale and Kyleen Bell, who were both named to the ACC All-Freshman Team. A lot was expected of the two highly-touted players when the season began, and they both proved to be battle-tough. Pachale finished the regular season as Tech's kill leader. Bell was a dominating force on the front line in her rookie season.
Tech's future looks bright with these two players in the lineup. The Jackets are seeded fifth in this weekend's ACC Tournament. Clemson, which also finished the season with a 10-6 conference record, received the fourth seed thanks to a head-to head tiebreaker. In the two times that Tech and Clemson played this season, each team won a match, but Clemson won more games.
The tiebreaker is basically insignificant, however, since the fourth and fifth seeds are slated to play each other in the first round. Tech and Clemson will face off today at 7:00 PM in the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament, which is being played at the University of Maryland.
"Our Clemson match in the quarterfinals should be a great one, as it will be a rematch of last year's ACC Championship match," commented Collier. "We split our matches, with both teams winning easy at home, so a neutral site match should be interesting."
Clemson beat Tech in three games back on October 15, but the Jackets defeated Clemson in four games on October 27 at O'Keefe Gymnasium. Should they be able to defeat Clemson again tonight, the Jackets would most likely play North Carolina in the semifinals. The Tarheels have beaten Tech both times this year, but don't count the Jackets out just yet.
"We are the only team in the ACC to have played in the ACC Tournament championship match in each of the last three season, so our players know what to expect," explained Collier. "We can be a dangerous team in this tournament.
"We've had some great matches and some poor matches [this season], but we have the capability to get on a roll and win three matches."
Taking into account the team's tournament success from the past three seasons and strong desire to return to the NCAA Tournament this season, it would not be that much of a surprise if Tech can advance to the championship match, which will be played this Sunday at 1:00 P.M.
Whether or not they are able to win the ACC Tournament and move on to the NCAA's, the Jackets will not play their last game of the year this weekend. Next Friday, Tech will play Georgia at 7:00 P.M. in the Ramsey Student Center. Georgia Tech fans in Athens for the football game on November 28 should make plans to attend.
|
Copyright © 1998 by Gregory S. Scherrer, Editor and by the Student Publications Board
submit a letter to the Editor
e-mail the Sports Editor with a comment about this story
e-mail the Online Editor if there's a technical problem with this page