Sept. 2, 2005
In their first match as Yellow Jackets, freshmen Talisa Kellogg posted 14 kills and 13 digs and Callie Miller had 11 kills and seven block assists as the No. 20 Georgia Tech volleyball team fell to Northwestern in three games (34-32, 30-28, 30-23) in its season opener at the Four Points University Plaza Wildcat Classic in Tucson, Arizona.
With the win, the Wildcats improve to 3-0 on the season while the Yellow Jackets drop to 0-1. The Yellow Jackets will return to action this evening facing host and 17th ranked University of Arizona (1-0) at 10 p.m. ET.
“We were working hard today and obviously have a lot of things to still work on,” said head coach Bond Shymansky. “We had individual brightspots today, but as a team need to come together and compete a little harder. We would make strong pushes, but then not respond when Northwestern competed. Callie Miller was impressive in her freshman debut and we know that she’s going to be a great middle for us in the future and Talisa Kellogg and Laura DeMichelis, as our two outside hitters produced pretty well. They’ve each had some pressure to respond to, but are showing signs of what we can expect out of those positions. Overall we are discouraged with the outcome, but encouraged by the progress and now we’ve got to turn around and get focused on our match tonight against Arizona.”
Tech’s offense struggled, as the Jackets hit only .163 as a team, while Northwestern posted a .244 hitting percentage. For the Jackets, Kellogg had a match-high 14 kills, while Miller added 11, DeMichelis talled eight and Abby Showers and Ulrike Stegemann each notched seven in the match. Lindsey Laband, who led the nation in assists per game in 2004, recorded 44 assists in the match.
Defensively the Jackets were led by Kellogg who had 13 digs, followed by Jennifer Randall and Michelle Kandell who each had six. In addition to Miller at the net, Kellogg had four block assists on the afternoon.
The difference in the match was middle blocker Cassie McLaughlin, who had 12 kills and hit .409 and Julie Purcell, who recorded a team-high 13 kills and hit .308.
Tech’s match Friday evening will be broadcast on WREK Radio on 91.1 FM or on the internet at www.wrek.org.
