Oct. 22, 2005
Freshman outside hitter Talisa Kellogg recorded a career-high 35 kills, the most kills in school history since the inception of rally scoring in 2001, to lead the Georgia Tech volleyball team to a 3-2 (30-20, 30-27, 17-30, 28-30, 22-20) win over Virginia Saturday night. With the win, the Yellow Jackets improve to 13-7, 9-2 ACC while the Cavaliers fall to 13-7, 8-3 ACC.
Down two games to none, the Cavaliers put up a fight, winning the next two games and forcing the Jackets into the fifth and final game.
The Yellow Jackets are now 5-0 in five game matches this season.
In the fifth game, Tech was down 8-14 before a service error by Virginia made the score 9-14. Behind the serve of Jennifer Randall, Tech scored on a kill from Kellogg, a stuff block by Lindsey Laband and Nikki Kaminskas, a ball hit out of bounds by Sarah Kirkwood, a service ace by Randall, and another kill by Kellogg to tie the game at 14-14. The Jackets served for match point six times before Kellogg posted the final kill of the match into the middle of the court.
The night belonged to Kellogg as her 35 kills marked the most kills recorded for a Yellow Jacket since Kerry Annel posted the same number against Duke during the 1994 season. Kellogg also added two service aces, nine digs and two block assists to lead Tech to the victory.
“I’ve coached some great teams here at Georgia Tech but the ability to come back in game five was like nothing I’ve ever seen,” said head coach Bond Shymansky. “Talisa played a phenomenal match and has truly risen to be one of the best outside hitter in our conference. Virginia didn’t let up after an early deficit but in the end our commitment to win and our energetic crowd provided the push to pull out the victory. Our backrow had a lull in game three but got refocused and was the key to our success in the end with great play by Randall, Showers, Gray and Kandell. This was a huge win for us and keeps us in striking distance of our ultimate goal, which is to be ACC Champions.”
Four players ended the match with double-figure kills as Kellogg posted 35 while hitting .311, DeMichelis had 14, Ulrike Stegemann added 13 and Callie Miller notched 10 and hit a team-best .400. Tech’s offense had 75 kills in the match as Laband recorded 60 assists to lead Tech’s offense to a .217 hitting percentage.
On the defensive front, the Jackets recorded 85 digs on the night as Randall posted 24 saves, followed by Abby Showers who tallied a career-high 17 digs, Lindsey Gray added a career high 13 saves and Laband who posted 11 digs.
At the net, Miller led the Jackets with six block assists while Laband added five total blocks and Kaminskas had three block assists. Kellogg, DeMichelis and Stegemann each added two block assists in the match.
The Cavaliers were led by Sarah Kirkwood who recorded 22 kills and hit .388 in the match, followed Shannon Davis who added 18 kills and hit .400.
Georgia Tech will return to action Friday when they travel to take on Duke in Durham, NC, at 7 p.m.
