Nov. 21, 2002
The Georgia Tech volleyball program has achieved some big goals this season, thanks to a small town girl leading the way.
First- team all-ACC outside hitter Lynnette Moster, a native of tiny Liberty, Indiana, has led the 20th-ranked Lady Jackets to a 28-5 regular season record, the school’s best mark in six years.
That’s an amazing accomplishment considering that this was supposed to be a rebuilding year for the program. The team’s top two players graduated, leaving a young and inexperienced group guided by a first-year head coach. Not exactly a recipe for success.
Much of the credit goes to coach Bond Shymansky, who has done a masterful job of developing his younger players, especially Moster. The 5-10 sophomore leads the ACC in kills with over five per game and has been the conference’s player of the week three times this season.
“I hoped that we’d be able to impress people, but I didn’t think we’d do this good,” Moster admitted. “We’re shocking the heck out of people, even myself. I can’t believe how well we’re connecting. I just can’t wait for the ACC Tournament.”
Georgia Tech hosts the ACC Tournament at O’Keefe Gym this weekend, and they enter as the number two seed after compiling a 13-3 record in conference play. The Lady Jackets face seventh-seeded Wake Forest in the opening round and are aiming for the school’s second league title in 20 years of ACC competition.
It’s a goal that seem unreachable at the start of the season, but Moster and her teammates developed a chemistry in the preseason that materialized with a 17-2 start that included victories over several ranked opponents.
“We started clicking right off the bat,” Moster said. “We just keep getting better and better.”
Shymansky observed that the team’s rise has mirrored Moster’s emergence as one of the nation’s best.
“Opening weekend, we were up at a tournament at George Mason, and she was just average,” he noted. “She’s figured it out very quickly. The learning curve for her has been rapid.
“We think she has a legitimate claim to be an all-America candidate this year. She has the numbers to do it. There aren’t many outside hitters in the country doing what she’s doing.”
While the team’s success has been a pleasant surprise, there was little doubt that Moster would become a star at the collegiate level. Growing up on a farm in rural eastern Indiana, volleyball was as much a constant in the Moster household as the pigs, cattle, corn and beans outside it.
Her mother Jennifer is the volleyball coach at the local high school, and Lynnette began playing the game at age four, following in the footsteps of her two older sisters.
“Either it was play in the gym, or help Dad on the farm,” said Moster, doing little to hide her disdain for farm chores. “I preferred the gym.”
Under her mother’s tutelage, Moster dominated at Union County High School, and her name is peppered throughout the school’s record book. She also played for a club team and earned Junior Olympic all-America honors three times.
“It’s obvious that she’s grown up around volleyball,” said Shymansky. “When you’re a coach’s daughter, you have opportunity to really understand the game. It’s the constant dinner table talk and road trips, the little things that really add up.”
As a freshman last year, Moster struggled at times adjusting to a part-time role as a defensive specialist, but she still made the second team all-ACC as well as the league’s rookie team.
“I thought I’d get playing time right away,” she said. “Growing up, I never sat on the bench, so it wasn’t easy to handle.”
As a starter this season, she is leading the team in virtually every statistical category. She credits the team’s new strategy, which requires a quicker pace, as an important factor in her development.
“It’s easy to see how significant her impact on the team is when you look at it statistically,” noted Shymansky. “What you don’t see in the statistics is her overall game control. She seems like she’s in on every play. She’s a great passer. She’s just a very solid player and doesn’t make many mistakes.”
The miscues have been nearly nonexistent lately, as the Lady Jackets are riding a six-game winning streak into their opening round match against Wake Forest Friday evening.
“We have lots of momentum going into this, and we know we can do well,” said Moster, who also predicted a Sweet 16 berth in next month’s NCAA Tournament. “We have confidence in ourselves.”
“We’re in a very healthy state of mind,” added Shymansky. “We have tons of confidence. We have a lot of great momentum. We’ve beaten a lot of good teams recently, and we’re really sprinting into the tournament.”
