Georgia Tech volleyball opens season Friday

“We’re not going to skip a beat,” coach Michelle Collier said. “I’m excited about the group, I’m excited about the talent that we have in the gym. I think that our veterans are doing a great job, they’re more seasoned, they’re ready to increase their roles. The newcomers have really done a good job. We’ve only been with them in the gym for maybe two weeks, but it feels like we’ve coached them for a long time.

“I’m just excited to kind of put together the pieces and know that we have options and alternatives. We’re going to do what it takes to win at the end of the day. Our players are ready for that.”

Collier, in her 10th season with the Jackets, has turned Tech into a major player on the national scene, especially in the past four seasons. Her team went 87-27 over that span.

And after a bit of a premature exit in the second round of the 2022 NCAA Tournament, Collier’s Jackets again are aiming to challenge for their first league title since 2004 and take that next step as a program.

“Our goal is always to win the ACC championship,” senior setter Isabella D’Amico said. “We’ve fallen short the past couple years.”

Bianca Bertolino and Tamara Otene, both outside hitters, are Tech’s top two returning attackers from a season ago. D’Amico (1,042 assists) is back as well, along with defensive specialist Paola Pimentel, who had a team-leading 374 digs.

Collier added a total of seven new faces to her roster to help make up for the departures of Bergmann and Moss. She explained that this season’s squad, however, will need to account for those points in a myriad of different ways, and maybe more so defensively than offensively.

Players like Mogridge (North Carolina), DeAndre Pierce (Texas) and Afedo Manyang (TCU), all middle blockers, will be a major part of that endeavor.

“I think we’re a little more physical this year, so hopefully blocking is where we’re scoring a little more of those points,” Collier said. “We’re just ready to see when we get out there and compete where our opportunities are. I still think we have a lot of room for growth as a team, which is super exciting.

“I feel like we’re playing volleyball at a high level already, but I feel like with a couple weeks we’re going to keep getting better. It’s exciting to see where this is going to go and how this is going to shape up, but I think that this year we have a lot more options and solutions to the problems that we’re going to face than maybe we have had in year’s past.”

Unapologetically, Collier didn’t give her team a break in the schedule to try to adjust to a different type of season. The Jackets open the year on the road for three consecutive weeks and face No. 8 Penn State before traveling to No. 14 Ohio State for two matches in two days against the Buckeyes.

Tech, which beat Auburn 4-1 in an exhibition match this month, doesn’t make its home debut until Sept. 15 against rival Georgia, one of three final nonconference matches before starting ACC play Sept. 20. The Jackets have two dates each with No. 5 Pittsburgh and No. 4 Louisville.

Tech opens the season at 6 p.m. Friday at South Florida.

As the Jackets weave their way through the ebbs and flows of the next three months, they’ll also be trying to get over that proverbial hump of capturing a league championship. Until that happens, despite the national rankings and preseason accolades, Tech will continue to play with a chip on its shoulder.

“We’ve talked about this a lot as a team, we fall back on our underdog mentality,” junior Laura Fischer said. “In the past we haven’t been ranked as high or talked about as much in the volleyball world. But we know how good we can be and will lean back on that underdog mentality just to keep us fighting, keep us humble and hungry for more.”