Sept. 4, 2010
MANHATTAN, Kan. – Senior Mary Ashley Tippins had her third straight double-double with 26 assists and 12 digs as the Georgia Tech Volleyball team (3-3) lost to Kansas State (4-3), 3-0 (23-25, 18-25, 23-25) Saturday night in the final match of the Varney’s Kansas State Invitational.
Junior Asia Stawicka and sophomore Monique Mead led Tech with eight kills apiece. Stawicka hit .412 while Mead also added seven digs. Georgia Tech hit just .086 for the match. Sophomore Susan Carlson had a career-high 10 digs, while senior Jordan McCullers led all Jackets with 17 digs. Freshman Jennifer Percy had two kills and five block assists as well for the Yellow Jackets.
Both Mead and Tippins were selected to the all-tournament team, the second straight week they have earned all-tournament team honors.
In the first set, the Jackets used a 7-1 run to open up a 14-6 lead and force K-State to burn both of its timeouts early. It was 17-9 Tech when the Wildcats began to chip away and eventually won the set. K-State answered with an 8-1 run of its own to eventually tie the set at 20. Tech went up a point for three straight possessions only to see the Wildcats tie it right back up. At 23-all, Kansas State went on to take the next two points and secure the first set.
It was 12-11 K-State in the second set when it proceeded to reel off six of the next seven points and open up an 18-12 lead. The Yellow Jackets were never able to recover and K-State went on to win 25-18.
The third set was also nip and tuck. Kansas State went up 4-0 early but the Jackets soon found themselves up 7-6. The teams traded the next several points but the Wildcats scored three in a row when it was 13-13 to force Tech into a timeout down 16-13 now. The Jackets fought back and went on a 10-4 run to go up 23-20, but Kansas State scored the final five points to complete the sweep.
The Yellow Jackets will now head to Athens next weekend for the Bulldog Invitational. Tech will play Florida Gulf Coast at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 10 and then No. 9 Washington (10 a.m.) and Georgia (7 p.m.) the following day. Both of Saturday’s matches will be broadcast on WREK, 91.1 FM in Atlanta and online at www.RamblinWreck.com. Live stats for all three matches will be available as well.
