Aug. 9, 2005
Returning seven letterwinners from last season’s Atlantic Coast Conference regular season champion and NCAA Region Semifinalist, Georgia Tech’s volleyball team begins preparations for the 2005 season with its first practice Wednesday in O’Keefe Gymnasium. The Yellow Jackets, who finished the 2004 season ranked No. 17 in the final CSTV/AVCA Coaches Poll, return four starters to a team which finished the ACC regular season with a perfect 16-0 record. In the CSTV/AVCA Preseason Coaches Poll, which was released Monday, the Jackets were No. 20, marking the fifth time in school history Tech will begin the year with a national ranking.
The Jackets welcome back all-American senior Lindsey Laband (Aurora, Colo.) as well as senior Jennifer Randall (Long Beach, Calif.), junior Abby Showers (Vandalia, Ohio) and freshman All-ACC performer Ulrike Stegemann (Schwerin, Germany) to its starting lineup.
In addition to seven returning letterwinners, Tech will add six freshman, including four newcomers who were named “Fab 50” recruits by Volleyball Magazine this year in outside hitters Laura DeMichelis (Aurora, Colo.), and Talisa Kellogg (Westerville, Ohio), middle blocker Callie Miller (Whitehouse, Ohio) setter Allie Niekamp (Findlay, Ohio) and defensive specialists Michelle Kandell (Huntington Beach, Calif.) and Stephanie Robbins (Atlanta, Ga.).
“We are very excited about our upcoming season and getting this year’s team in the gym,” said head coach Bond Shymansky, who enters his fourth year at the helm of the Jackets. “Young players bring out the best in us as coaches because they remind us for the need to teach and develop a mindset for the game and that is exciting for us. It also requires us to have a great deal of patience and we’re prepared for that. I think there will be a lot of joy in teaching and training such a talented group of players.”
“We still will need to count our older players to really help our younger players on a day to day basis with a lot of different things. Whether it is handling issues on campus or just preparing for what it means to be a student-athlete at Georgia Tech, the leadership qualities that we have on our team are a huge advantage. We return our offensive leader in Lindsey Laband as our setter and our defensive leader in Jennifer and that alone will have a much greater impact than anything you might see statistically.”
The Yellow Jackets will practice for 11 days prior to the start of the fall semester. The regular season begins Sept. 2 when Tech faces Northwestern and No. 17 Arizona at the University of Arizona Tournament The 2005 schedule is highlighted with seven matches against teams that participated in the 2004 NCAA Tournament and also includes a double round robin format against the ACC this year.
“Our biggest goal this preseason will be to figure out what our starting lineup will be at the beginning of the season,” said Shymansky. “We have a very athletic team this year and we are smart enough to know that that lineup is bound to change as the season progresses but we want to be able to sink our teeth into a starting lineup by the end of the first week and then really train that lineup for our first match against Northwestern.”
