Sept. 18, 2005
Laura DeMichelis recorded 14 kills and two block assists, but the Georgia Tech volleyball team dropped a three-game match to arch rival Georgia (30-27, 30-21, 30-23) in Athens Sunday afternoon. With the defeat, the Yellow Jackets fall to 3-5 on the year while the Bulldogs improve to 5-5 on the season.
The win for Georgia ends a seven-match losing streak to the Yellow Jackets and is the first time they have won since the 1998 season.
“We’re starting to find better consistency and our competitiveness was a reflection of the importance of the match,” said head coach Bond Shymansky. “Georgia battled us tough and defended their home court well. Our young players responded to the challenge but just fell short. I was impressed with the play of our five freshman, but in particularly with Allie in her first starting role and also the play of Jennifer Randall, who did an outstanding job of passing the ball and anchoring our defense. We had a competitive spirit that we can build on for the rest of our season and look forward to the improvement our team can make as we head into the conference portion of our schedule.”
Starting the first match of her career, Allie Niekamp tallied a career best 36 assists and six digs and ran an offense which recorded 44 kills. In addition to DeMichelis, Talisa Kellogg had 11 kills and four block assists and Urlike Stegemann had six kills and one block assist.
Defensively, the Jackets were led by Jennifer Randall who had a team-best 11 digs in the match while Kelogg had six digs and Abby Showers and Michelle Kandell each recorded five.
The difference in the match was Georgia’s offense as they hit .243 in the match and held the Yellow Jackets to a .122 percentage. Rightside hitter Meagan Welch was tough to handle as she had 12 kills and hit .409 on the afternoon.
The Yellow Jackets will return to action Friday when they take on Wake Forest in O’Keefe Gymnasium at 7 p.m. in their first match of the Atlantic Coast Conference season.
