Georgia Tech Volleyball Announces 2024 Schedule

Georgia Tech Volleyball will begin their season soon

Georgia Tech Volleyball / Georgia Tech Athletics

The 2024 Georgia Tech Volleyball season is right around the corner and the schedule was released today.

The season contains 16 home matches, highlighted by a rematch of last year’s NCAA Tournament 2ndRound match, between Georgia Tech and Florida, at McCamish Pavilion on Sept. 11. Tickets for the 2024 season will go on sale at 11 a.m. today (July 16).

The Yellow Jackets will play nine non-conferences matches, beginning with the season opener on Aug. 30 at 7 p.m. against UCLA from O’Keefe Gymnasium. The battle against the Bruins is one of three matches in the opening week, as Tech will take on New Mexico State on Sunday (Sept. 1) before hosting reigning Sun Belt Champions, Coastal Carolina on Labor Day afternoon (Sept. 2). After a road trip to Provo, Utah (vs. Lipscomb, Sept. 6 and at BYU, Sept. 7), Tech returns to The Flats for the Georgia Tech Invitational, featuring matches against both Florida (Sept. 11 in McCamish Pavilion) and South Alabama (Sept. 12), both of GT’s victories in last season’s NCAA Tournament, as well as a Friday night match against Alabama State (Sept. 13). Tech concludes the non-conference slate with Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate, taking on Georgia, in Athens, on Friday, Sept. 20.

The Jackets will face a new 20-match ACC schedule following the additions of SMU, Stanford and Cal to the conference. The conference season opener comes against SMU, in O’Keefe, on Sept. 27 before hosting Pitt the following Sunday (Sept. 29). October features five home conference matches against Virginia Tech (Oct. 11), Virginia (Oct. 13), Clemson (Oct. 16), NC State (Oct. 25) and Wake Forest (10/27). Seven on the final 10 matches of the season come on the road, with a weekend homestand against Boston College (Nov. 15) and Syracuse (Nov. 17) before the home finale, against Stanford (Nov. 26). Tech will play every ACC team once with three home-and-away series against Pitt, Clemson and Stanford.

In total, Tech will play just under half of its matches against teams from the 2023 NCAA Tournament (13 of 29), including five of its nine non-conference opponents. The Jackets will take on three of last season’s Elite 8 programs with home-and-away series against Pitt (2023 Final Four) and Stanford (2023 Elite 8) as well as a road match at Louisville (2023 Elite 8).

Seven opponents finished last season in the AVCA Top 25: No. 4 Pitt, No. 5 Stanford, No. 6 Louisville, No. 18 BYU, No. 19 Florida, and No. 25 Florida State, with SMU finishing the year receiving the most votes of any non-ranked team. The Jackets came in at No. 14 in the final poll of the season, the 70th consecutive Top 25 ranking dating back to the start of the 2020 season.

The Yellow Jackets are coming off their fourth-consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance in 2023, with an opportunity to tie the program record for consecutive NCAA Tournament berths this year. Tech is one of only 14 programs across Division I to have won a match in each of the last four tournaments after defeating both South Alabama (3-1) and Florida (3-2) last season.

Tech returns six of eight players from last year’s main rotation, including AVCA All-American Bianca Bertolino (OH), All-ACC Tamara Otene (OH) and All-ACC Freshman Team members Larissa Mendes (RS) and Heloise Soares (S). Bertolino is coming off a season in which she established herself as the best passer in the nation, at her position, successfully passing 97.5 percent of the serves sent her way (711 of 729 receptions), the highest receiving percentage of any non-libero in Division I. Otene delivered her first-career 400 kill season in 2023, extending GT’s streak to eight straight full seasons with at least one 400 kill hitter, one of only four programs in Division I to do so.

Coach Collier added five newcomers to the roster thanks to a pair of transfers, senior setter Luanna Emiliano (UTRGV) and junior DS/L Sofia Velez (Trinity Valley CC), and three incoming freshmen: Logan Wiley (MB), Mira McCool (MB/RS) and Lydia Zeng (DS/L).

In typical GT volleyball fashion, the 2024 roster contains a strong international component. Six of the 17 players on the roster come from outside the United States: Bertolino (San Guillermo-Santa Fe, Argentina), Emiliano (Belo Horizonte, Brazil), Mendes (Fortaleza, Brazil), Otene (Auckland, New Zealand), Soares (Joinville, Brazil) and Velez (Tulua, Colombia). The Jackets return all three coaches from last season, all from Brazil.

Head Coach Michelle Collier enters her 11th season on The Flats with a 197-107 record. She is three wins shy of becoming the second coach in GT volleyball history to reach 200 wins, along with AVCA Hall of Famer, Shelton Collier (271 wins from 1991-2001). She enters 2024 with the most ACC wins (111) and the most NCAA Tournament wins (7) in program history as she looks to become the first coach to lead the Jackets into five straight NCAA Tournaments.