For the first time since 2009, Georgia Tech will compete in the NCAA volleyball tournament Wednesday. Outside hitter Julia Bergmann hasn’t waited quite that long – the two-time first-team All-ACC selection is a sophomore – but she’s eager all the same.
After earning an at-large spot in the 48-team field with a 13-4 record, the Yellow Jackets will play Lipscomb at 7 p.m. EDT in Omaha, Neb.
“All the work we put into it, that’s just a reward we get for all the hard practices,” Bergmann said. “And I think we worked a lot to get here, and we are prepared for whatever comes.”
As was the case with the NCAA basketball tournaments, the NCAA volleyball tournament will be contained in one city. Tech will play its first-round match at the CHI Health Center Omaha, a convention center and arena. The winner faces No. 3 seed Minnesota on Thursday. (Wednesday’s match will be streamed on ESPN3.)
The Jackets arrived in Omaha on Sunday, and were to have their first on-site practice Tuesday. To stay active, the team made use of a team room at the hotel, stretching with bands, doing movement drills, performing mindfulness exercises and going through volleyball drills in the small space.
Yesterday was Day 2 here in Omaha...found a way to stay true to our core values! No gym, No problem! Proud of our @GTVolleyball family for finding ways and making each day count👊🏽 🎥 @acmfotos pic.twitter.com/66yYvqc3gh
— Michelle Collier (@collmich) April 13, 2021
Given that this is a new realm for players – they did win the NIVC tournament in 2019 – coach Michelle Collier and her staff are trying to keep things normal while also acknowledging the moment.
It helps that one of her assistant coaches, Arielle Wilson, won four consecutive national titles as a player at Penn State and the other, Claudio Pinheiro, was on the coaching staff for the Brazilian women’s national team that won gold at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.
“I think that they know what it’s like to be in environments like this and we have talked to our girls, we have exchanged some information about our experiences,” said Collier, who played in three NCAA tournaments as a player at South Florida and coached in the tournament once as coach at Jacksonville. “But really letting them know that this is their time and they’ve just got to go out there and enjoy it. They earned it. They’re the only ones that know how hard they worked to earn this and then to be given this opportunity. So it’s on them. They can just go enjoy it.”
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