THE FLATS –
Georgia Tech volleyball (7-8, 2-4 ACC) will pack the buses to head to North Carolina for a pair of ACC matches starting with Wake Forest (8-9, 2-4 ACC) on Friday night and finishing with NC State (9-7, 2-4 ACC) on Sunday afternoon.
Storylines
- The Yellow Jackets are coming off a 1-1 week which included a 3-1 win over Duke before falling 3-1 to No. 23 North Carolina.
- Freshman Anna Fiedorowicz has been an unstoppable force on Tech’s offense as she’s recorded double-digit kills in each of the last five matches.
- Fieodorwicz offensive push began against Florida State with her first career double-double (13 kills, 13 digs).
- Against Duke, she not only marked a career high 17 kills, but also tied her career high of 19.5 points and recorded a career high 35 attacks for the third straight match after posting identical numbers last week against both No. 4 Pitt and No. 10 SMU.
- The freshman’s career-high kills against the Blue Devils were bested only by fellow freshman Mimi Mambu who also posted a career-high kills (20).
- Mambu leads Tech’s offense this season with 149 kills, averaging 2.92 kills per set, while Fiedorowicz leads in conference play with 70 kills, averaging 3.18 kills per set.
- Bianca Garibaldi stands as one of Tech’s top defensive assets, leading the team with 69 total blocks, four of which were solo blocks. Of her 69 blocks, 36 of them came against ACC opponents including a career high 10 blocks against No. 11 SMU a few weeks ago.
- The sophomore is ranked ninth in the ACC for blocks while being ranked second in the same category for conference only matches. She sits 42nd nationally with 1.30 blocks per set.
- Offensively, Garibaldi also finds herself ranked seventh in the ACC for overall hitting percentage (.370).
- Junior Heloise Soares has been nothing short of a reliable piece to the Yellow Jacket team across the board. She reached her 15th consecutive match of the season with 17+ assists and averages 8.34 assists per set, good for an eighth-place conference ranking.
- Soares marked her fifth double-double of the season last week in Tech’s 3-1 win over Duke with 41 assists and 10 digs.
- Sofia Velez most recently recorded her 11th game of the season with double digit digs with 14 digs against No. 23 North Carolina, bringing her to 116 games recording 10+ digs out of 125 total collegiate games.
- Sunday’s match against a No. 23 ranked North Carolina was Tech’s seventh ranked match of the season.
- This week will mark the first since early September that the Jackets will not play at least one ranked opponent.
- Georgia tech sits with one of the toughest scheduled in the nation (seventh) and the third toughest schedule for an ACC team behind No. 6 Pitt and No. 8 SMU. Despite dropping from the rankings earlier this season, the Yellow Jackets continue to receive votes.
Series Notes
- Tech leads in the overall series against Wake Forest, 41-12, and leads 131-61 in sets won.
- The Jackets’ own the last seven wins in the series and haven’t dropped more than one set to the Demon Deacons since 2018.
- Georgia Tech leads in the overall series against NC State, 50-20, and leads 162-87 in sets won.
- The Jackets enter the Sunday match on an eight-match win streak against the Wolf Pack, with their last loss being back in 2017.
Full Steam Ahead
Full Steam Ahead is a $500 million fundraising initiative to achieve Georgia Tech athletics’ goal of competing for championships at the highest level in the next era of intercollegiate athletics. The initiative will fund transformative projects for Tech athletics, including renovations of Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field (the historic home of Georgia Tech football), the Zelnak Basketball Center (the practice and training facility for Tech basketball) and O’Keefe Gymnasium (the venerable home of Yellow Jackets volleyball), as well as additional projects and initiatives to further advance Georgia Tech athletics through program wide-operational support. All members of the Georgia Tech community are invited to visit atfund.org/FullSteamAhead for full details and renderings of the renovation projects, as well as to learn about opportunities to contribute online.
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