Sept. 5, 2008
ATLANTA – Callie Miller notched a match-high 10 kills and Michelle Kandell added 18 digs to lead Georgia Tech (4-0) over Arkansas (0-4), 3-0 (26-24, 25-22, 25-14) on the opening night of the 2008 Regency Suites Classic at O’Keefe Gym.
Miller hit .500 with 10 kills and just two errors while Brittany Roderick and Asia Stawicka added nine and eight kills, respectively. Stawicka finished the match with a team-best five block assists while hitting .467 against the Razorbacks, and Roderick collected her nine kills on 19 attempts, hitting at a .316 efficiency.
Niekamp ran the Yellow Jacket offense with 33 assists while tallying nine digs and three kills.
“It’s great when you know that you can depend on your seniors to perform night after night,” said Georgia Tech head coach Bond Shymansky. “Right now we are getting great passing from Kandell, great setting from Niekamp and terminal hitting from Callie Miller. Callie seemed nearly unstoppable tonight.
“We continue to be excited about the direction that our freshmen are headed and are really pleased with the hitting and blocking of Asia Stawicka.”
The Yellow Jackets led the match in nearly every category, outhitting the Razorbacks .260 to .152 while tallying 13 more kills than their opponent. Tech also posted 41 digs to Arkansas’ 35.
The two teams played a tight first set with seven lead changes and 17 tie scores, but the Yellow Jackets’ back row defense, led by Kandell, proved to be the difference. Tech collected 17 digs to the Razorbacks’ 12, with Kandell picking up nine of the Jackets’ digs in the set. Tech finished it off with a 4-1 run, capped by a pair of kills from Alison Campbell to win, 26-24.
Roderick hit .333 and notched a set-high six kills and Stawicka added three block assists to lead Tech to a 25-22 win in the second frame, giving the Yellow Jackets a 2-0 match lead. After Arkansas pulled within one point at 20-19, the Jackets scored three-straight points with kills from Roderick and Stawicka and a service ace by Jordan McCullers to put the set out of reach.
With the third set tied at 3-3, the Yellow Jackets used a 7-2 run to take control of the set and never looked back, cruising to a 24-14 victory.
“There are still a few things that we need to tighten up and do better if we expect to defend our home court the rest of the weekend,” Shymansky added.
The Yellow Jackets will square off against Xavier Saturday at 5 p.m. in Tech’s second match of its home tournament. The Musketeers knocked off Georgia State, 3-0, in the first match of the tournament and enter with a 4-0 record. The match can be heard on WREK Radio (91.1 FM in Atlanta/www.wrek.org) and seen on ACC Select.
–GT–
