Virginia Falls 3-0 at Georgia Tech
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Box Score Oct. 28, 2016
ATLANTA, Ga. – The Virginia volleyball team fell 3-0 (25-19, 25-20, 25-21) to Georgia Tech on Friday night at O’Keefe Gymnasium.
Virginia (4-19, 1-10 ACC) led with six service aces to four, but Georgia Tech (19-5, 10-2 ACC) had the edge in hitting percentage (.278-.131), blocks (11.0-5.0) and digs (42-41).
“We played really hard and battled the whole match,” head coach Dennis Hohenshelt said. “We switched some things around in our rotation and are asking Jasmine (Burton) and Haley (Kole) to swing at a lot of balls and I thought they did a good job of handling that. Lexi (Riccolo) passed the ball very well.”
Senior Jasmine Burton (West Hills, Calif.) continued her hot-hitting with a team-high 12 kills on .235 hitting. Senior Haley Kole (Tallahassee, Fla.) added nine kills and sophomore Harley Sebastian (Atlanta, Ga.) finished with six.
Senior Lexi Riccolo (Wheaton, Ill.) led the back line with 11 digs and four service aces. All but two players that appeared recorded a dig for the Cavaliers. Freshman Kiley Banker (West Lafayette, Ind.) had a team-best three blocks.
Virginia opened the match with the first four points, including two aces by Riccolo. The Cavaliers’ lead was cut to one, but a 4-1 run stretched it back to 9-5. Georgia Tech climbed back and took the lead 14-10 with a 9-1 run. Down 17-12, UVA had a 3-0 run to cut it to two as the Yellow Jackets called timeout. GT countered with a 5-0 run and held on to take the set 25-19.
The Cavaliers fell behind 7-2 in the second set. UVA was down 15-9 when it scored three-straight points off two kills by Sebastian and an ace for Burton to cut the Yellow Jackets’ lead to three. Georgia Tech hit right back with a 3-0 run as Virginia called timeout, trailing 18-12. The Cavaliers closed the gap to 22-19 after a 3-0 run that included back-to-back kills by Burton, but Georgia Tech remained in control to win the second set 25-20.
In the third set, UVA opened with the first two points and then took a 6-3 lead after a block by Burton and Banker followed by an ace from Horner. The Cavaliers forced an early timeout by the Yellow Jackets after a kill by Burton and a block by Sebastian and Banker extended the lead to 10-6. Tech used a 5-1 run to tie the set at 15. The teams traded points before UVA took an 18-16 advantage and stretched it to 20-17 on back-to-back kills by Wineholt and Kole. The Yellow Jackets fought back and closed the set on an 8-1 run to win 25-21.
“I am definitely not down on these kids right now and I think we are going to come out tomorrow and play well,” Hohenshelt said. “If we can keep building on this lineup and how we are doing things I feel pretty confident in what they are doing right now.”
Virginia will continue its road weekend at Clemson on Saturday at 6 p.m. at Jervey Gym.