Crysten Curry and the Eagles take on No. 10 Florida Friday.
How High Do Eagles Fly? We’ll Find Out Friday
8/28/2014 9:49:00 PM | Volleyball
Share:
By: Marc Gignac
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The Georgia Southern volleyball team will be a part of history when the Eagles take on the No. 10 Florida Gators Friday at noon in the O'Connell Center in the Active Ankle Challenge.
For the first time in an NCAA volleyball match, both teams will wear VERT, a blue-tooth vertical jump testing device, and the heights of the student-athlete's vertical jumps will be shown on the video boards inside the arena.
So when Eagle senior middle Kym Coley puts down her first kill of the match, fans in the arena will be able to see how high she jumped.
"Pretty cool," she said. Vertical jump heights will display on the video board.VERT attaches to the waistband of each student-athlete, measures their vertical jump in real time and records the data. It can generate a host of calculations and analysis that in addition to appearing on a video board can also be transferred to iPads or mobile devices on the bench for the coaches to monitor. They can use that information to discern if somebody is getting tired or if there's a possible breakdown in technique that kept her from jumping her average height.
"It's exciting because it kind of brings everything together - like what we do in Iron Works (the Eagles' weightlifting facility) – all of that stuff comes together and plays a role," said junior middle Crysten Curry. "You want to see if you start off really strong or if you stop jumping as high at the end of a game. You can track all that and after the game, you can analyze how you did."
"It tracks what sets you may have come down in and when you picked it back up, and I feel that's when it's most useful," added senior outside hitter Jamie DeRatt.
In addition to sending the info to the video board for fans in the arena, it can be sent to broadcast locations on press row, which will be useful Friday as the game will be shown live on the SEC+ Network and available on WatchESPN.
The VERT was invented by Florida graduate Martin Matak, and the Gator volleyball team introduced the technology at their Fan Day last August. All four teams will wear VERT this weekend, and the company hopes its ability to generate real time information will help market the sport of volleyball to fans and in addition to helping coaches with player development.
Georgia Southern Athletics provides up-to-date information on all its sports through its official website, GSEagles.com, through social media channels facebook.com/GSAthletics, twitter.com/GSAthletics, iOS app Georgia Southern Eagles and Android app Eagles GATA. Fans can purchase tickets to Georgia Southern Athletics events by calling 1-800-GSU-WINS or by visiting GSEagles.com.
