Nov. 19, 2004
The Clemson Tigers, the number nine seed in the ACC Tournament had two players combine for 55 kills and hit .341 as a team to upset the top seed Georgia Tech volleyball team in four games, 31-29, 27-30, 30-28, 30-25. With the loss, the Yellow Jackets fall to 23-6 on the season while the Tigers improve to 20-13. The defeat also ended a 21-match win streak that the Jackets had built over the course of two months.
For Tech, Lynnette Moster connected for 25 kills and hit .302 while Lauren Sauer posted 20 kills and hit .271 while Ulrike Stegemann had a career-best 15 kills and hit .480, Jayme Gergen recorded 15 kills and hit .355 and Laura Kuhn had 13 kills and hit .296.
“I give Clemson all the credit in the world,” said head coach Bond Shymansky, who now holds a 5-2 record in the ACC Tournament. “It takes a fantastic game plan to upset the one seed in a tournament, and the Clemson coaching staff had just that. I thought that they did a great job of keying in on Lynnette and Lauren and got some great touches on their blocks, which allowed them to give the ball to Leslie Finn and Brittany Ross, who were just unstoppable today for Clemson. Certainly playing Clemson only once during the course of the season, and not playing them since September really hurt our team as the Tigers have just improved so much over the course of the season and they are a different team than who we faced back in Jervey Gym. Our passing really struggled at key points of the match, which allowed Clemson to convert to their offense to their advantage. We are certainly disappointed with the outcome of the match today, but at the same time, as a team we have a lot to be proud of this season. It’s been a long time since our team has lost a match, and so now we’ve got the challenge to turn our attention to our matches against Georgia and Winthrop next week and then wait to see if we receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Defensively, the Jackets posted 78 digs in the match as Marisa Aston recorded 19 digs, followed by Moster who had 13 and Jennifer Randall who had 12 and Abby Showers who notched 11. At the net, Stegemann recorded five block assists wile Kuhn had three and Laband two.
The Tigers advance Saturday’s semifinal match of the tournament and will take on the winner of Florida State and North Carolina at 1:30 p.m. at Memorial Gym in Charlottesville, Va.
