Sept. 24, 2009
ATLANTA – The Georgia Tech Volleyball team (7-4, 1-0 ACC) returns home as Atlantic Coast Conference play picks up in earnest this weekend. The Yellow Jackets, who are 6-0 at home this season, will host NC State (7-8, 0-0) on Friday night at 7 p.m. and then North Carolina (4-7, 0-0) Sunday at 1 p.m. at O’Keefe Gym.
There are 33 current alumnae scheduled to be in town this weekend and they will be recognized between the second and third sets of Friday night’s match against the Wolfpack. Live audio and stats for both matches can be found this weekend at www.RamblinWreck.com, while they’ll also be broadcast on WREK, 91.1 FM in Atlanta.
Tech returns to O’Keefe Gym where it sports a 6-0 record this season, including a five-set victory two weeks ago in the conference opener against Clemson. The Jackets are coming off a 0-2 weekend at the Pioneer Classic in Denver, Colo., where they lost hard-fought matches to No. 9 Minnesota and host-Denver.
Georgia Tech is 34-12 all-time against NC State including a 3-0 sweep last season in Raleigh, N.C. Tech has won 18 straight matches against the Wolfpack and 12 of them have been 3-0 sweeps. NC State’s last win in the series was a 3-2 decision on Oct. 22, 1999 in North Carolina.
Against North Carolina, the Yellow Jackets are 21-28 all-time and were defeated 3-1 on the road last season. Prior to last season’s loss, Tech had been victorious against the Tar Heels four straight times.
With its win against Clemson, Tech is currently in a first-place tie atop the ACC standings with No. 18 Florida State, Duke and Virginia. Sophomore Bailey Hunter has recorded double-figure kills in each of the last nine matches and leads the team with 149 on the season. Her 3.39 kills per set rank fifth in the ACC.
Sophomore Asia Stawicka is third in the ACC with a .394 hitting percentage and fifth averaging 1.20 blocks a set. Freshman Monique Mead, who has four double-doubles this year, is ninth in the ACC with 2.86 kills per set while also recording 88 digs (2.00/set). Junior Jordan McCullers is currently eighth in the league with her team-high 3.70 digs per set and classmate Mary Ashley Tippins is second in the ACC and 39th nationally dishing out 10.55 assists per set. She also ranks ninth with 0.34 service aces per set (15 total). With her 464 assists this season, Tippins now ranks eighth in Tech history with 1,501.
As a team, Tech is seventh in the ACC in hitting percentage (.226), ninth in opponent hitting percentage (.206), third in assists (12.16/set), fourth in kills (13.18/set), sixth in blocks (2.19/set), eighth in service aces (1.20/set) and 11th in digs (11.43/set).
