GT Volleyball Cruises Past Clemson

The first Wednesday game of the season included two of #11 Georgia Tech Volleyball’s easiest sets of the season, beating the Clemson Tigers 25-13, 25-12, 25-21 in 1 hour 26 minutes.

It was Julia Bergmann’s first game sitting in solo 10th in Georgia Tech All-Time Kills, passing Carla Gartner. She sat at 1,460 going into tonight, and with her 18 kills tonight, passed Wendy Malins for 9th place on that list. Bergmann is now at 1,478, 108 behind 8th held by former teammate Mariana Brambilla. Considering she’s averaging 5.24 kills/set, that 8th spot is almost certainly within reach pending an injury.

The first two sets featured late set subs by Nicole Drewnick and Laura Fischer. Drewnick in her limited points recorded three assists in the first set. Half of the 16 assists between her and Bella D’Amico went to Bergmann, who scored 9.5 points in the set.

Set two was more of the same, and it wasn’t until set three that Clemson finally grew into the game and actually began putting up a good fight. On that note, let me begin the three thoughts.

1. Getting caught off guard: Clemson provided such little fight in the first two sets that by the time set three was underway, Clemson was set up to at least scare Tech a little bit. They did just that by taking a quick 4-2 lead in the third set that Tech quickly rebounded from, but it set the tone for the whole set that Tech was going to need to up their game. After not using any timeouts all match, Michelle Collier used both of hers to get Tech through the third set. Clemson of course will rarely win by taking two sets to get into a match, but if Tech has this happen again to them against a top ranked team, they best learn from tonight.
2. Will Moss and Morrissette ever not be efficient? Another night, another game where Breland Morrissette and Erin Moss were remarkably efficient in attacking. Moss hit 10 kills at .588, and Morrissette hit 8 kills at .571. I don’t have the background to say why a team wouldn’t use their middle blockers more on offense if it works this well, but it certainly is a means to make Tech lethal.
3. Minimal Errors! The lack of a serious Clemson defense helped minimize the need for risky shots. Tech only hit six attack errors all match, five of them by Bergmann, but even that is low for her. Add in only four service errors and return errors each, and Tech had themselves set up to be competitive in more points than they usually are. Hopefully a good sign going forward against Duke on Friday.