March 7, 2007
ATLANTA – Fans hoping to get a preview of the 2007 Georgia Tech volleyball team are invited to attend the Yellow Jackets’ intra-squad scrimmage this Saturday at O’Keefe Gymnasium. The scrimmage is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. and is open to all fans free of charge.
This coming fall the Yellow Jackets will return 12 of 13 members from a team that finished 20-12 in 2006, including a 12-10 conference mark and a nine-match winning streak towards the end of the season. Highlighting the returnees is AVCA honorable mention All-American Ulrike Stegemann, a rightside hitter from Schwerin, Germany, that hit .311 with 2.83 kills and 1.89 digs per game last season.
Joining Stegemann on the right side is Brittany Roderick, who will be participating in her first spring session after completing her first season on the Flats in 2006.
The team also returns a bevy of outside hitters, including the DeMichelis sisters, Laura and Chrissy, as well as Lindsey Gray and Talisa Kellogg. Laura DeMichelis will return for her third season on the Flats in 2007 after receiving a medical redshirt last year, while Chrissy is participating in her first spring campaign after concluding her freshman season in December.
Kellogg, Tech’s leader with 3.64 kills per game last season, will be returning for her junior season in 2007, and the Westerville, Ohio native is just 103 kills shy of 1,000 kills in her career.
Gray has been a standout performer for the Yellow Jackets on both the front and back rows, tallying 2.94 kills and 2.95 digs per game in 2006 while also leading the squad with 0.42 service aces per game. The Lenexa, Kansas native will be one of three seniors to lead the 2007 squad, joining Stegemann and middle hitter Nikki Kaminskas.
Kaminskas, Callie Miller and Erin Birmingham all return to anchor the Jackets’ blocking corps, and the three players combined for 257 blocks in 2006, an average of 0.99 blocks per game.
Setter Allie Niekamp will return for her third year with the program in 2007, and made a splash in her first full season at setter with a triple-double in the first match of 2006. Averaging 11.76 assists, 2.20 digs and 1.22 kills per game while hitting .304, the Findlay, Ohio native was one of three Yellow Jackets to play in every game last season, joining defensive specialist Michelle Kandell and the lone senior, libero Abby Showers.
Kandell is Tech’s top returning defensive specialist, and will be vying for the role of libero that Showers vacated due to graduation, and she will be joined in the back row by junior Atlanta native Stephanie Robbins and newcomer Jordan McCullers, the 2006 AAAA Volleyball Player of the Year for the state of Georgia.
