Hokie Club
BLACKSBURG – In its final match of the season, the Virginia Tech volleyball team fell at home in a nail-biting five-setter to Clemson on Wednesday at Carilion Clinic Court at Cassell Coliseum.
Seniors Rhegan Mitchell and Jaila Tolbert concluded their careers with the Hokies (14-16, 5-13 ACC) on a high note, as Mitchell tallied 55 assists, four digs, three kills and two blocks and Tolbert recorded 14 kills, seven blocks and a dig. The Tigers (16-14, 7-10 ACC) were led by Ava Pritchard, who had a match-high 15 kills and five blocks.
Starting the match trailing 8-5, Tech saw a solo block by middle blocker Marisa Cerchio and then the sophomore teamed up with Tolbert for a block assist to cut the deficit to one at 10-9. However, Clemson got back into its grove and went into the media timeout up four points at 15-11. Out of the break, Tech would trim the lead but the Tigers always had an answer, winning by four, 25-21.
Two kills by Tolbert and an ace by libero Carol Raffety gave Tech a 3-0 lead in the second set, but Clemson battled back and tied it up at 6-all. The Tigers would go on a 12-7 run, forcing a Tech timeout at 18-11. The Hokies scored four of the next five points following the pause in action, but Clemson finished on a run of its to win it, 25-19.
Knotted at 10-10 to begin the third frame, the Hokies' middle blockers got kills in Angel Robinson and Cerchio to give Tech a 15-12 lead at the media timeout. It maintained its two-point lead up until 18-16 after a kill from Tolbert and that sparked a 7-2 run, as the Hokies won it, 25-18.
The fourth stanza saw 10 ties and six lead changes in a back-and-forth affair, with no team being able to break away until it got to 19-19 following a kill by Robinson. After the put down by the Oklahoma native, Tech got hot and scored six of the next eight points to claim it, 25-21.
Outside hitter Kaity Smith, who had four kills in the set alone, delivered one to give Tech an 8-7 advantage before the two teams switched sides. Cerchio and Tolbert got a combination block to push Tech's lead to 11-7, but the Tigers dug deep and finished on a 9-3 run to win the final set, 16-14.
(11/21/2018) 2018 VOLLEYBALL SEASON FINALE
NOTES
- Mitchell finishes No. 5 all-time in school history for career assists, racking up 3,520 and passing Jordan Fish (2011-14) by 18 assists.
- Tolbert wraps up her career in the maroon and orange with 1,030 kills, making her No. 15 all-time in school history.
- Cerchio arguably had her best match of the season versus the Tigers, racking up the second-most kills (13) of her career and a career-high 11 blocks. The 11 blocks are tied for the seventh-most in program history and the first since Cara Cunningham on Sept. 9, 2016, against Ole Miss.
- Smith put together her seventh straight match of double-digit kills, putting down 14 while scooping up seven digs. The streak was her longest of the season, topping her previous best set from Sept. 23 through Oct. 12. The Kentucky native finished with a team-high 376 kills on the season, averaging 3.51 kills per set.
- Following her best match as a Hokie on Sunday against Syracuse when she set then-career highs in kills and hitting percentage, Robinson topped it with 11 kills versus the Tigers. She finished her last two matches with 19 kills, her best two-match kill total of the fall.
- Libero Carol Raffety led the team in digs, totaling 27, just one short of her career high, and had her ninth 20-plus digs match of the year. She finishes the season passing 12 Hokies on the all-time career digs list, with now sitting at 1,342 in her storied career at the No. 6 spot.
QUOTING HEAD COACH JILL WILSON
On what the two seniors, Rhegan Mitchell and Jaila Tolbert, meant to this program:
"I think the lasting impact of the seniors, sadly, won't be felt today with a loss, but it will be felt greatly in the future," Tech coach Jill Wilson said. "I told the team after the match, that they have no idea yet the example those two set for them, and I hope that they will realize it in the very near future."
On what the goals will be this offseason in terms of culture pieces:
"There's going to be two different things that are going to be the main focus of the spring," Wilson said. "One is that we have got to work on our consistency and it comes with hard work. We have really been a wait-and-see team. We have to start deciding that we are going to work equally as hard every single point and not try to work ourselves back into matches."