Georgia Tech volleyball wins thriller against Wake Forest

 By E. Marcel Pourtout, Editor

In a highly-contested match, the Georgia Tech volleyball team (8-9, 1-3 ACC) emerged with a 3-2 (25-17, 22-25, 25-14, 17-25, 15-12) win over Wake Forest Sunday afternoon.

Three Yellow Jackets had ten or more kills in the victory led by Teegan Van Gunst’s 13. She also had 12 digs for a double-double. Annika Van Gunst had 11 kills and 11 digs in the win. Courtney Felinski finished the contest with 11 kills.

“It feels good getting our first ACC win,” Georgia Tech coach Michelle Collier said. “We’ve faced some really good teams and that prepared us.”

The win was also the Yellow Jackets’ second five-set victory of the season. The other win came in a contest against Lipscomb on Sept. 12.

In the first set, the Yellow Jackets had a .162 hitting percentage with Sydney Wilson scoring a team-high four kills in that frame. She finished the match with seven kills.

After dropping the second set, Georgia Tech dipped into its bench for the third set as Ashtaan Horton, Callie Bivings and Ashley Askin each saw their first action of the match within the rotation.The changes worked for the Yellow Jackets as they took the third set 25-17. Georgia Tech scored nine of the last ten points with an .219 hitting percentage overall in the set.

“We needed some new energy and diversify our right-side attack,” Collier said of the substitutions in the third set. “We also wanted to give a different look to our offense.”

The Yellow Jackets scored the first four points of the fifth set, including a kill by Teegan Van Gunst. The Demon Deacons mounted a comeback and tied the score at 12-12.

Georgia Tech scored the final three points of the match, including a kill by Annika Van Gunst and solo block from Teegan Van Gunst to secure the victory.

“We were more balanced on offense,” Felinski said. “It was important to get a win and knew that Wake Forest was playing well. It makes this a great win.”

Defensively, the Yellow Jackets had a strong showing with 16 total team blocks and a sideout percentage of 52 percent.

“We ended up playing different defenses for their two biggest hitters,” Felinski said. “We knew what the game plan was and executed it well.”

London Ackermann had a team-high 22 digs for Georgia Tech while Rebecca Martin’s 34 assists were the most on the team.

Matalee Reed and Jazmen Russell each had a team-high 10 kills for the Demon Deacons. Caroline Wolf led Wake Forest in digs with 24.

Georgia Tech returns to action on Oct. 10 in a home match against North Carolina State.