Sept. 18, 2009
DENVER, Colo. – Senior Brittany Roderick had 14 kills but it was not enough as the Georgia Tech Volleyball team (7-3) saw its four-match winning streak come to an end at Denver (4-6), 3-1 (25-21, 23-25, 18-25, 13-25) Friday night in the Pioneer Classic. Roderick, who came up just one kill short of her career-high, hit .462 for the night.
Sophomore Asia Stawicka hit .562 as she added nine kills, while sophomore Bailey Hunter chipped in with 13 kills. Junior Jordan McCullers and freshman Susan Carlson added 10 digs apiece for the Yellow Jackets. Georgia Tech hit .206 as a team for the match.
“For whatever reason we were not prepared to play tonight and that’s disappointing,” said head coach Tonya Johnson. “Denver played well and we didn’t do the things that we needed to do to stay in the match.”
In set one, the Yellow Jackets had to rally twice to go up one. Down 13-9, Tech reeled off five straight points to take a 14-13 lead. Denver came back to re-take the lead, 16-15, but another run of 4-0 by the Jackets gave them the lead again at 19-16. Denver, however, would not go quietly. The Pioneers tied the set at 20 apiece, but Tech scored five of the next six points to win the first set, 25-21.
In set two, Denver led by as many as seven points a couple of times but Tech made a furious rally that came up just short in the end. Denver first led 8-4 early, but the Jackets were then able to tie the set up at nine all. Denver responded with a 9-2 run to open up its seven point lead at 18-11, but the Jackets fought back and began to chip away. They eventually got as close at one point a couple of times at 22-21 and 23-22 but were unable to come all the way back as the Pioneers evened the match up at one set apiece with a 25-23 win.
Georgia Tech took an early 8-4 lead in set three, but Denver came back to tie. The teams then traded the next several points, until a Denver run gave it a 19-16 lead and forced a Tech timeout. Unfortunately for the Yellow Jackets, the Pioneers continued the scoring spree. It got up to a seven-point deficit at 23-16 before the Jackets scored. All told, the 6-0 burst by Denver gave it a 2-1 lead in the match as the Jackets were defeated 25-18.
Denver jumped out quick again in the fourth set as it took an early 9-4 lead and forced the Jackets to call timeout. The Pioneers continued the run after the timeout and never looked back en route to the 25-13 win which sealed the win.
The Yellow Jackets will now face No. 9 Minnesota Saturday at 3 p.m. (ET) in their final match of the Pioneer Classic. Live stats can be found at www.RamblinWreck.com.
