Volleyball falls short in championship

Last weekend the Jacket volleyball team hosted a gour-team tournament, which featured George Washington, Long Island University and Western Kentucky.

The Jackets entered the the friendly confines of O'Keefe Gymnasium with a 1-2 record, after suffering early road losses to Arizona and Northwestern, two top-20 teams, before beating Winthrop.

"We've never shied away from playing good volleyball teams. We want to come out after [difficult competition] right away," head coach Bond Shymansky said.

In the three-match home series, the Jackets beat George Washington and Long Island University in four games before losing to Western Kentucky Saturday night in three games.

The young Jacket team now has a record of 3-3.

Tech started out with George Washington last Friday night. The Jackets defeated the Colonials 28-30, 30-27, 30-22, 30-28.

In the first game the Jacket offense had only a .125 attack average in their two-point loss, but then hit .244, .241 and .255 in the following games.

Junior Abby Showers led the team with her .312 attack average and also recorded seven kills with only two hitting errors.

Callie Miller and Talisa Kellogg led the Jackets with 12 kills each, and Laura DeMichelis and Ulrike Stegemann followed with 11 kills each.

For George Washington Lindsey Vernand had 12 kills and a .524 hitting percentage. Janine Brown followed with 11 kills for the Colonials.

On Saturday the Jackets played a doubleheader. In the midday game Tech defeated the Long Island Blackbirds 30-23, 16-30, 30-24, 33-31.

DiMichelis led the Jackets with her 14 kills, while senior libero Jennifer Randall had 14 digs.

At the net sophomore Nikki Kaminskas had a career-high five blocks in the match, while Stegemann posted four block assists and Showers and Laband each had two block assists.

Freshman Talisa Kellogg recorded 13 kills and gained a .333 hitting percentage.

In the third match of the weekend, the Jackets faced Western Kentucky and lost in three games 30-12, 30-24, 30-27.

The Lady Toppers improved to 8-1 on the season as they ended Tech's 14-match home winning streak in O'Keefe Gymnasium. That streak dated back to Sept. 24 of last year when Tech beat North Carolina in three games.

Tech's offense never seemed in synch in a game where the Jackets had only a .106 hitting average. Western Kentucky on the other hand hit .402.

DeMichelis and Kaminskas were the only Jackets with double-digit kills. Both of them had 10 apiece.

"We learned the valuable lesson of consistent effort. Some of it comes from youth and intimidation. It was a tough setback for our team," Shymansky said.

"The key for us is building team chemistry. Our team motto is, 'Together we will.' We want to try and teach them to trust each other," Shymansky said.

A seven-member all-tournament team was chosen, and it featured three players from Western Kentucky, two players from Tech and one player each from Long Island and George Washington.

Laband and Kaminskas represented the Jackets on the all-tournament team.

Senior Caron Blotch of Western Kentucky was picked as the tournament MVP.

The Jackets are now 3-3 going into this weekend's Georgia Invitational Tournament in Athens. Tomorrow the Jackets will face off against Michigan, who has a season record of 4-3.

The Wolverines are a tough Big 10 opponent who have some good big hitters in the middle and will require a good defensive effort from the Jackets. Michigan has won four straight matches. All of those games were home matches played against Akron, Cleveland State, Illinois State and Eastern Michigan.

On Sunday Tech will play against Georgia. The Bulldogs are coming off of a three-game losing streak from their tournament in Lubbock, Texas where they lost to Boise State, Texas Tech and San Diego State. The Jackets have not lost to the Bulldogs since 1998.

"I want us to gain confidence and continue to develop as a team. We want to win 3-0 against Georgia," Randall said.

Tech's next home game will be at 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 23 against Wake Forest.

Fan support this past weekend was lower than normal, probably because of the home football game.

"Come and experience volleyball because there is nothing like it. One more body or set of hands is so much more helpful to us," Randall said.