Aug. 27, 2004
Despite Jayme Gergen recording 12 kills and two blocks while hitting .385 the No. 12 Georgia Tech volleyball team dropped its opening match of the 2004 season to No. 1 Southern California in three games, 30-20, 30-24, 30-18. With the loss, the Yellow Jackets fall to 0-1 while USC improves to 1-0 and advances to championship match of the NACWAA Classic Saturday at 9 p.m. ET. The Jackets will face either No. 5 Minnesota or No. 11 Colorado State at 7 p.m. ET in the consolation match of the NACWAA Classic.
“We were working hard tonight and obviously have a lot of things to still work on,” said head coach Bond Shymansky, who for the first time in 78 matches as a head coach fell to a team in three games. “One of the things I told my team is that USC is a great team, and we are working on becoming a great team, and after tonight I think we have a better idea of what the type of work is that we need to do. A big factor in tonight’s game is that our offense and our success is so tied into our passing and defense and tonight at times we really struggled and it showed.”
Tech’s offense struggled, as the Jackets hit only .154 as a team, while Southern California posted a .336 hitting percentage. For the Jackets, Lynnette Moster had a team-high 16 kills, while Lauren Sauer added 10 kills on the evening. Lindsey Laband, who started her first match for the Jackets in two years, posted a career high 36 assists in the match. Defensively the Jackets were led by Marisa Aston who had 15 digs and Abby Showers who posted a career-high 14 digs in the match. In addition to Gergen at the net, Laura Kuhn had two block assists followed by Sauer who had a block solo and a block assist.
The difference in the match were all-American middle blockers Emily Adams and Bibiana Candelas who both hit over .500 in the match. Adams led the way with 12 kills and hitting .500, while Candelas had nine kills and hit .529 while posting five block assists. Defensively, Debora Seilhamer had 19 digs to lead the Trojans. Tech’s match Saturday will be broadcast on WREK Radio on 91.1 FM or on the internet at www.wrek.org.
