Nov. 28, 2014
THE FLATS – Three Yellow Jackets tallied double-digit kills as the Georgia Tech volleyball team (13-18, 6-12 ACC) swept (25-23, 29-27, 25-21) the Clemson Tigers (18-14, 6-12) in the Jackets season finale Friday afternoon.
Senior Courtney Felinski had the first three-straight kills in the match and logged 12 on the day for a .321 hitting percentage in her final collegiate match.
“We’re going to miss Courtney,” head coach Michelle Collier said. “She’s been wonderful for this group. She’s grown every match that we played and grew into her leadership role. She ended out the season playing all six rotations and being one of our key passers, where she didn’t even play the back row at the beginning of the season.
“It just shows how much work she’s put in to lead the team and how much better she got. I’m very proud of her. It sets the example to every young player to never get complacent; you can always get better. I thank her for everything she’s done for this program and she’ll definitely be missed.”
Sophomore Annika Van Gunst led all players with 14 kills on 27 swings with no errors for a .519 hitting clip, and freshman Ashley Askin had a season-best 10 kills for .333 hitting.
Sophomore London Ackermann led the back row with 18 digs and Teegan Van Gunst chipped in 11. Felinski was one dig away (9) for a double-double.
“We have almost everyone returning for the spring except Courtney and I think it’s a great way to finish the season,” Collier said. “I think we did a lot of the things well that we struggled with. We came back from being down at set point, and we showed a lot of resilience and kept composure.
“We played a 6-2 today and it was something new that we just tried last week. It was great to see Callie Bivings do a great job bringing in a lot of energy and it was good to see Ashley Askin come in and play a great match too. We need to keep the momentum going into the spring when we have so much work to do and so much room to grow. It’s exciting to finish on a high note.”
The Yellow Jackets led by four, 12-8, before Clemson put together an 11-7 run to knot the score 19-19 and scored the next three straight to take a 22-19 advantage. The Yellow Jackets didn’t give up and worked back to knot the game 22-22 on a kill by Lauren Pitz and back-to-back aces from Felinski.
Tech went ahead 23-22 on a solo stuff by Teegan Van Gunst and put the set away 25-23 on an Annika Van Gunst kill.
Set two was a back-and-forth battle featuring 13 tied scores and five lead changes, and neither team led by more than three points. Clemson was poised at set point 24-21, ready to even the match 1-1, but the Jackets knotted the game 24-24 on a block by Pitz and Felinski to stay alive.
The game was tied three times from then on, and at 27-27 a kill slammed down by Felinski gave Tech set-point and a Clemson attacking error handed the Jackets the game, 29-27.
Down 7-3 early, the Jackets went on a 5-0 run to climb back into game three. The Yellow Jackets took the lead for good 14-12 on a kill by Teegan Van Gunst, holding the Tigers to 12 kills to Tech’s 17 in the 25-21 victory.
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