Count Georgia Tech faithful as believers after Saturday afternoon's dramatic 28-27 win over Georgia at Sanford Stadium.
 Flash back to Oct. 8. A deflected pass by Georgia Tech's Corey Griffin set into motion a bizarre series of events that led to a wild, gut-wrenching, 37-34 loss at Pittsburgh. The defeat was the Jackets' third-straight and left them at 3-3 after a 3-0 start.
  On Saturday afternoon, a deflected pass -- this time to Jackets' corner Lance Austin -- set into motion another wild course of events, again resulting in a wild finish.
  Austin pulled in the carom of Georgia quarterback Jacob Eason's pass, which was behind wide receiver Terry Godwin, who could manage only to get a hand on it. The INT gave the Yellow Jackets, down 27-21, the ball at the UGA 46 yard line with 3:39 to go in the ballgame.
  "We were in zone coverage. I think Eason thought it was man," said Austin. "The pass was kind of tipped right to me."
  The Jackets would cash in eight plays later. On third-and-goal from the six, A-back Qua Searcy faked a throw-back pass to quarterback Justin Thomas, sprinted toward the end zone, went airborn at the three and landed over the goal line. (See photo above) Harrison Butker's PAT, which pulled him into a tie atop Tech's all-time scoring list, made it 28-27.
  That Austin would make a big defensive play hardly came as a surprise. He went into Saturday leading the ACC in pass break-ups (12) and his game-changing interception at UGA was his third of the season, second in the last two games and his third takeaway in last three games, all of which led to touchdowns.
  "(No.) 17, somehow he's always around the ball," said linebacker P.J. Davis, referring to Austin's uniform number. "He's always making big plays," added the senior, who had 12 tackles in his final regular-season game.
  Of course, the defense believed that someone was going to make a play. That's the way they've rolled in `16 and the reason the team has rolled over the second half of the season, closing 5-1 after heart-breaking loss at Pittsburgh.
  "The defense, all season long, we've been `Keep pushing. Keep pushing,'" said fifth-year senior Patrick Gamble, who had 11 tackles and one stop behind the line of scrimmage from his defensive tackle position on Saturday. "We kept playing today, we got a chance to win the game for the team and we did it."
  Despite a hard push from Georgia's running game throughout the afternoon, Tech's D kept pushing back. UGA running backs Sony Michel and Nick Chubb ran for 263 yards (6.3 per rush) but 244 of those came in the first three quarters, as Georgia opened a 27-14 lead.
  But Tech's defense kept counting on the one thing it knew would keep morale high.
  "Each other," said Gamble. "We didn't want to be that person to let the team down. We knew what we had to do, we believed in ourselves and played our assignments. We played a down at a time and a series at a time. We came out and fought."

 
 In their regular season finale, the Georgia Tech volleyball team (24-8, 15-5 ACC) narrowly fell in five sets at No. 16 Florida State (24-5, 17-3) on Friday afternoon at Tully Gym. The Jackets await their post-season fate with the NCAA Selection Show set for Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on ESPNU.  

 Georgia Tech finishes the regular season with their best overall (.750) and ACC (.750) winning percentages since 2004 (.794 overall, 1.000 ACC).
 The Jackets got off to a slow start in game one and never caught up to Florida State. At 22-17, the Seminoles scored the final three points of the set to take it 25-17.
  The second set was all Georgia Tech until Florida State came storming back from a 21-15 deficit to tie the set 21-21. From there, Florida State went on a 4-1 run to win game two, 25-22.
  Georgia Tech regrouped and raced out to a 9-0 lead in game three. The Jackets hit .387 with 10 of their 17 kills from the Van Gunst twins on their way to a solid 25-16 victory.
  The Jackets had a late lead 23-13 in game four, but the Seminoles never quit and worked b ack within three 23-20. Georgia Tech held on to win 25-23 and force a fifth game.
  In game five, it was the Jackets turn to recover from a 7-2 deficit to tie the game 12-12. Tech took the lead 13-12 on a solo block from Gabriela Stavnetchei, but Florida State scored the final three points of the game to escape 15-13.
   "I thought we played pretty well," head coach Michelle Collier said. "The first two games they [the Seminoles] were able to do a good job against us defensively and once we matched what they were doing defensively we were able to produce more offensively.
  "This team has been unbelievably resilient all this season. They are going after it and not giving up. I think that they definitely created a way to play volleyball out there to represent Georgia Tech that should make a lot of people proud.

Teegan Van Gunst Named First Team All-ACC

  Senior outside hitter Teegan Van Gunst was named to the 2016 All-ACC First Team, the ACC announced Monday. The awards were decided based on a vote of the league's 15 head coaches. The award marks the second consecutive first team selection for Van Gunst.
  "Teegan is very deserving," head coach Michelle Collier. "She worked incredibly hard and was willing to learn, to grow and to adjust. I think it's a reflection of how well our team played this season in having our best year in 12 seasons. She grew tremendously this season and I'm excited to see what she accomplishes in the future."
  The Fayetteville, Ga., native started all 32 matches and was second in the ACC in kills/set (4.19) and points/set (4.72). Her 507 kills led the Yellow Jackets and rank 10th all-time on Georgia Tech's single-season list. She tallied 19 double-doubles on the season, including 30 matches with 10-plus kills and 20 matches with 10-plus digs. The last time a Yellow Jacket had more than 500 kills in a season was Monique Mead in 2011 (588).
  Van Gunst became one of nine Yellow Jackets all-time to eclipse the 1,000 career kills and 1,000 career digs marks, and ended her career with 1,453 kills - tied for 10th all-time at Georgia Tech - and 1,262 digs.  Quick Hits