On September 7, the Western Carolina volleyball team played in what will probably be their most difficult tournament all year long. The Cats traveled to Atlanta for the Georgia Tech Classic and faced off with huge Division I schools Georgia Tech, Georgia, Kentucky, and Arizona. The Cats, as can probably be expected when playing such big schools, were swept three games to none by all four teams. Western’s first match was against host Georgia Tech. The Cats were pretty noncompetitive against the Yellow Jackets as they lost by scores of 30-18, 30-17, and 30-16. The most productive players for Western were senior Meredith Harmon and sophomores Liz Rondone and Katie Hennessey. Rondone finished with 18 digs, while Harmon tallied 10 kills and an excellent .500 attack percentage. Hennessey finished with 21 set assists. The Catamounts played Georgia much more competitively, but they lost by scores of 30-25, 30-25, and 30-23. The Cats even had a 16-13 lead in game one against the Bulldogs, but Georgia went on an 8-3 run to take the lead back. Hennessey was once again instrumental for the Cats as she finished with a double-double. Hennessey had 24 set assists, 10 kills, and a solid .318 attack percentage. Freshman and UNCA Classic MVP Jelena Jakovjevic would finish the match with 14 digs. Western faced off with Kentucky and Arizona on the next day, but things still didn’t get much better. The Cats were competitive in game one against Kentucky as they lost 30-25, but the Wildcats took it to WCU in games two and three and won by scores of 30-18 and 30-17. Hennessey, Harmon, and Rondone led the way again for Western as Hennessey finished with 25 assists, Harmon had 12 kills, and Rondone had 13 digs. Western fared almost exactly the same against the other Wildcats team from Arizona, except this time WCU started off poor before competing in game three (30-17, 30-19, and 30-24). Rondone and Hennessey were again the leaders as Rondone had 12 digs and Hennessey had 27 assists. The Cats dropped to 3-7 overall on the season, but luckily for Western the competition shouldn’t be this hard for much of the rest of the season. The Catamounts face mostly SoCon teams from here on out with just a few exceptions, but none of the teams they face are the bigger schools from the ACC, SEC, or Pac-10.