John NakanoThe volleyball team earned two victories over the past weekend, sweeping the Boston College Eagles on Friday night and the Maryland Terrapins on Sunday afternoon to remain a perfect 7-0 at home this season. With these victories, the Jackets have now swept six of their last seven opponents. The wins brought the Jackets to an 11-2 record, 3-0 in the ACC, and a tie for first place in the ACC, while both BC and Maryland now sit at 1-2 in the conference.
The first set of the BC match was a highly competitive one towards the end, with six ties and four lead changes in the final fourteen points. Tech won the set 25-23, after jumping out to a 10-4 lead.
The second set started out promising for the Eagles, who took an early 5-1 lead. However, the team could not get out of its own way, committing five service errors in the set and allowing the Jackets to catch up. Attacking errors also piled up for BC: six errors contributed to an 11-1 run for Tech that gave the Jackets a 22-15 lead. Tech held the lead to take the set, 25-19.
Tech took the third and final set, 25-14, for the victory over BC. Sophomore Courtney Felinski shined in this set, hitting at .500 and tallying four of her eight kills on her way to a .333 clip for the match. Senior Bailey Hunter had nine kills on the evening, while senior Monique Mead notched an additional seven. Sophomore Kaleigh Colson led the team with 26 assists and five service aces on the night. Mead had a team-high ten digs, while Colson and senior Nicki Meyer each had nine.
The Jackets returned to O’Keefe Gym on Sunday to take on Maryland and snapped the Terrapins’ four game winning streak with a 3-0 victory, 25-15, 25-18, 25-17. The Jackets looked sharp all day, going on several scoring streaks and forcing the Terps to play catch-up.
“I felt like we came out and set the tempo for the match,” said Head Coach Tonya Johnson, courtesy of ramblinwreck.com. “It makes it a lot easier to play and you come out and throw the first punch, setting the tempo. I thought we did that very early.”
The Jackets scored the first point and never looked back to take the first set, 25-15. The Terrapins could not get it together offensively, putting up a .050 hitting percentage on the day, including a negative hitting clip in the first set.
However, the Terrapins managed to gain a 14-11 lead over Tech in the second set until Tech scored six straight to take that set’s lead for good. The third set was much like the first, with the Jackets in control to win the set and match.
Colson posted a double-double with 30 of the team’s 37 assists and 11 digs. Hunter led the team in kills with 14, while Mead had 12 of her own.
The Jackets will travel to NC State to face the one-loss Wolfpack on Sept. 28 followed by a Sept. 30 matchup at North Carolina.