Volleyball travels
Tech will face three non-conference teams at the Nike Michigan Invitational this weekend. The Jackets are looking forward to win some out-of-conference games and shake off any disappointments from last weekend.
"We leave for Michigan on Thursday. We're playing Michigan, and we're their feature match... We feel great about it. Getting a big win this week would be so awesome. We want to prepare heavily for it this week and get ready to play ACC teams," said Telissa Kellogg, a hitter for the Jackets.
The first two matches will be on Friday against Temple University and Utah Valley State. These two matches are set to be great warm-ups for the Jackets before they have to face the Wolverines on Saturday.
"We're just going to go out there, give it our all and hopefully get a win against a Big Ten team," Kellogg said.
The Jackets will be working on a few key areas before they make the trip to Ann Arbor. Efficient passing, key serving plays and preventing errors will be high on the priority list. Several of Tech's players displayed excellent stats on the scoreboard during last weekend's match-ups, but the Jackets struggled to put all the elements together in crucial situations and had a couple of disappointing losses.
"We need to go back to passing and serving. While serving, we missed some crucial points as well as when we were passing... We just need to really focus on those two fundamentals," Kellogg said.
The Jackets look to continue to play with full force and momentum as they did against Georgia. Being that it was non-conference play, last weekend was a time for the team to experiment on both sides of the ball, giving Kellogg and other players another chance to play in the back-row. It also gives Mary Ashley Tippins a chance to lead the offense. The inconsistent results from last weekend's match-ups should not reflect how the Jackets will turn out for the rest of the season.
"We're working on it. We just have to see what we can get out of it... I personally love it. I love playing the game, living off of momentum; I'm working on being good on services, playing well on defense and being someone my team can rely on to play anything... Just doing whatever I can to move the team forward," Kellogg said.
The Jackets will be disadvantaged as they do not have home-court advantage this weekend. Tech faces the Wolverines' volleyball team during a prime-time match-up on Saturday. The match will immediately follow a football match against rival Notre Dame, and this volleyball matchup should see Michigan fans enjoy another marquee matchup.
