Oct. 30, 2003
Standing in first place in the Atlantic Coast Conference standings, the No. 4 Georgia Tech volleyball team (22-0, 10-0 ACC) travels to Virginia (20-6, 4-6 ACC) and Maryland (20-4, 9-1 ACC) for their final ACC road trip of the season.
Friday at 7 p.m. in the newly renovated Mem Gym, the Yellow Jackets will face the Cavaliers in a match that will be aired on WREK radio (91.1 FM) and can be heard on audio streaming at www.wrek.org. Tech leads the all-time series between the two schools, 18-15, and defeated Virginia earlier this season in three games. The Jackets have not lost to the Cavaliers since the 2000 season.
“I thought that we played very well against Virginia earlier this year, but that was on our home court on a night after they had played a long match against Clemson,” said head coach Bond Shymansky. “This time, it will be on their home court after a week of practice and we’ll have to do a good job of keeping focused and passing well because they are definitely a good enough team to beat us.”
Saturday at 7 p.m., Tech will take on Maryland in the new Comcast Center in a match that will be aired on WREK radio and also may be heard on www.wrek.org. Picked to finish seventh in the ACC Preseason Coaches Poll, the Terrapins are currently in second place and only one match behind the Jackets. After posting an 18-14 record a year ago, Maryland is having a strong season and is one of the nation’s best blocking teams. As a team, they are ranked fifth in the nation, posting 3.24 blocks per game while Rachel Wagener is ranked third individually with 1.76 blocks per game. In their first match of the season, the Jackets defeated the Terrapins in four games and hit .337 as a team in that match.
“Teams can prepare in two ways for a program like Maryland,” said Shymansky. “They can work hard at hitting around the block or they can prepare to cover their hitters when they do get blocked and we are certainly preparing for them both ways. We certainly felt like we clicked very well offensively when we played them last time, but they do a fantastic job of blocking this year, which will make the match tough for us.”
“This weekend we are playing in two new gyms, which I think is great for our conference because it shows that volleyball is heading in a good direction,” said Shymansky. “Our team is excited to go up and play in front of some good crowds and see those new facilities this weekend. This will be our toughest road trip of the conference season this year, but our focus will be to make a strong statement on Friday and then make whatever adjustments that we need to make to get ready for our match on Saturday.”
