Nov. 23, 2002

Atlanta, Ga. - No. 2 seeded Georgia Tech will face the Florida State Seminoles in the ACC Volleyball Championship, after downing Duke, 3-1 (33-31, 30-26, 17-30, 30-20) in the quarterfinals. The Championship match will mark the first time Georgia Tech and Florida State have met in the conference title game.

"We knew Duke would come out and play us tough today," said first year head coach Bond Shymansky, who has led the Jackets to their first title appearance since 1997, "I'm so pleased with our team's work ethic on the court. Today we made up for our lack of execution with an abundance of effort and that helped us tremendously. I'm ecstatic that we are in tomorrow's championship match and we can't wait to play for the title in front of our crowd."

Georgia Tech (30-5) advances to play Florida State Sunday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. With the loss, the Blue Devils fall to 24-9.

Georgia Tech won the extended first game 33-31 with the help of strong all-around play by first-team All-ACC performer Lynnette Moster, who tallied eight kills and six digs.

The 20th-ranked Yellow Jackets took the second game 30-26. The two teams had nearly identical statistics after two games with Georgia Tech nudging out Duke's 34 kills with 38 and collecting 35 digs to Duke's 31.

The Blue Devils defeated Georgia Tech 30-17 in game three, holding the Yellow Jackets to a -.042 hitting percentage. Duke's ACC All-Freshmen performer Sarah Salem recorded four kills, two digs and a block assist.

Georgia Tech won the decisive fourth game 30-20. Moster posted a match-high 25 kills in addition to 14 digs. Laura Kuhn, Alexandra Preiss and Lauren Sauer also tallied double-digit kills with 10, 11 and 10, respectively.

Duke's Katie Gilman had 17 kills and 15 digs, while Salem contributed 13 kills and ten digs.