THE FLATS – Georgia Tech volleyball earned its first academic honors of the 2025 season as both Bianca Garibaldi and Heloise Soares were named CSC All-District, the association announced on Tuesday afternoon.
The 2025-26 Academic All-District® Women’s Volleyball Teams, selected by College Sports Communicators, recognize the nation’s top student-athletes for their combined performances on the court and in the classroom. The CSC Academic All-America® program separately recognizes honorees in four divisions — NCAA Division I, NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III and NAIA. The academic honor is the third post season award for Garibaldi as she also was named Second Team All-ACC and AVCA All-Region. Tuesday’s All-District honor is the first of the season for Soares.
After transferring to Tech, Garibaldi maintained a 3.50 GPA while pursuing her bachelor’s degree in business administration. On the court, she competed in 107 sets across 29 matches during her first season on The Flats. Garibaldi emerged as one of the Yellow Jackets’ most efficient and aggressive attackers, leading the team with a .417 hitting percentage. She also set a new modern-era program record with 139 total blocks, including 13 solo stops. Her standout season earned her Second Team All-ACC recognition following the regular season and AVCA All-Region honors last week, ahead of Tech’s 2025 NCAA Tournament run.
Soares completed her junior season as one of just two Yellow Jackets to start all 30 matches and play all 112 sets in 2025, while maintaining a 3.64 GPA in pursuit of her bachelor’s degree in business administration. The Brazilian setter served as Tech’s primary distributor and a key presence at the net, recording 1,087 of the team’s 1,408 total assists. She averaged 9.71 assists per set with a .417 assist percentage. Soares also added 25 kills—tying her career high nine times—and finished the season with 48 blocks, including six solo blocks. Nationally, she ranked just outside the top 50 in both total assists (53rd) and assists per set (59th).
To be eligible to receive the CSC All-District honor, student athletes must meet the following requirements:
- An undergraduate student-athlete must have at least a 3.50 cumulative grade point average(on a 4.0 scale)
- Transfer student-athletes are immediately eligible. If your transfer student-athletes (undergraduates or graduates) are in their first semester at your institution, you must use their cumulative undergraduate GPA and cumulative graduate GPA (if grad GPA is applicable) from their former institution — which meets the 3.50 cumulative GPA — to be considered for Academic All-District/Academic All-America status
- Must have competed in 90 percent of the institution’s matches played OR must start in at least 66 percent of the institution’s matches. Liberos, although not counted in stats as a starter, may be counted as such for nominating purposes.
Full Steam Ahead
Full Steam Ahead is a $500 million fundraising initiative to achieve Georgia Tech athletics’ goal of competing for championships at the highest level in the next era of intercollegiate athletics. The initiative will fund transformative projects for Tech athletics, including renovations of Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field (the historic home of Georgia Tech football), the Zelnak Basketball Center (the practice and training facility for Tech basketball) and O’Keefe Gymnasium (the venerable home of Yellow Jackets volleyball), as well as additional projects and initiatives to further advance Georgia Tech athletics through program wide-operational support. All members of the Georgia Tech community are invited to visit atfund.org/FullSteamAhead for full details and renderings of the renovation projects, as well as to learn about opportunities to contribute online.
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