In the fall, nine sports took place and did they have some successful seasons or parts of season continuing that school year: volleyball, men's soccer, women's soccer, swimming and diving, men's golf, women's golf, men's cross country and women's cross country.
Starting with volleyball, the team had the best record in program history since it's jump to D1 in 2007 (23-3, 11-1 A-Sun). The team ended 27-6 with an 11-3 record in conference.
They began the season a little shaky going 1-2 facing Villinova, Ohio and then No. 21 Western Kentucky at the Ohio Tournament hosted by Ohio University. They lost 0-3 to Villanova, won 3-0 against host Ohio before finishing with a 1-3 loss to WKU. The interesting part of the game against Villanova, assistant coach Kim Maroon was facing her original alma mater.
Hosting the second annual FGCU Hilton Garden Inn Invitational that included the University of Delaware, University of New Orleans and Virginia Commonwealth University, FGCU started with a hot start. They beat all three teams 3-0. Delaware would end the season 16 - 16 and 8-8 in the CAA, UNO would go 5-25 overall and 1-15 in the SLC and VCU would end 19-14 and 8-6 in the A-10.
They then hosted the second annual FGCU Homewood Suites Classic that included University of South Alabama, Marist College and power five team Indiana. They would easily handle South Alabama 3-1 and Marist 3-0, but the battle between FGCU and Indiana was the biggest speed bump in the season. IS. Ala would go 16-14 and 7-9 in the Sun Belt, Marist, who was on a 10 game losing streak in the beginning ended 13 - 17 with a 12-6 record in the MAAC and the UI would go 17-16 and 6-14 in the Big Ten.
Despite the injuries that plagued then freshman Ciara Debell in the volleyball game against Indiana, the volleyball team kept fighting in the game with the help of then freshman Giovanna "GioGio" Borgiotti and Danielle Serrano, who stepped up and fought hard for the team.
Aside from that, they beat Lipscomb for the first time since 2012, and during the time, FGCU had the longest winning streak in the nation (15 straight games) before falling 3-1 to conference rival Kennesaw State. The streak was held by Nebraska (27 straight games) before they fell to Minnesota.
FGCU would be the No. 3 seed in the conference tournament. They beat Jacksonville University 3-1 in the quarterfinals and Kennesaw 3-2 in the semifinals, but would fall short to Lipscomb 1-3 in the championship match.
Four seniors finished their last season games of the year: outside hitter Leigh Pudwill, defensive specialist Caroline "C.J." Jordan, middle blocker Marlene "Mar" Moeller and setter Marina "M.A." Adami.
Moeller and Jordan have been there since their freshman while Puwill, who transferred from the University of Northern Iowa and Adami from College of Central Florida weren't, but were very effective.
Five FGCU volleyball players earned A-Sun honors: sophomore setter Maggie Rick earned Setter of the Year, sophomore outside hitter Amanda Carroll and Pudwill earned A-Sun First Team All-Conference honors and Borgiotti and Serrano earned All-Freshman Team honors.
With the four seniors gone, head coach Matt Botsford managed to sign five new players, four from high school and one from a junior college.
With men's and women's cross country, there is really no "record" for them, but the men's team had three first place finishes in the FAU Invitational, UNF Invitational and the Upstate Invitational while the women had season best second place finish in the FAU Invitational.
Leading the reigns for the men were graduate student Luka Ndungu, junior Ronny Greenup, sophomore Maximilian Weigand and freshman Carlin Berryhill. Ndungu, Greenup and Berryhill earned A-Sun All-Conference Honors.
On the women's side, junior Anita Munoz, senior Stephanie Cajas and sophomore Carley Lutzow lead the reigns.
With men's and women's soccer, they was always battles there.
Both teams made it to the nationals, but the men's team went further than the women's.
During the season, the team started a little shaky with a loss to Big Ten's Northwestern, but in front of over 1,000 fans at the soccer complex to witness a 2-2 tie with Michigan.
After winning four straight games against San Francisco, UCF, UNCW and FAU, FGCU was receiving votes to be one of the top 25 teams in the the nation.
During a east coast road trip, FGCU beat NJIT 4-1 and faced Rutgers with 6-5 win. During the game against Rutgers, then junior Albert Ruiz scored and supposedly recorded the fastest hat trick in NCAA Division 1 history in the first nine minutes of the game.
With that game, FGCU ranked at No. 15 in the nation. They would then jump to No. 12 after beating FIU, USF and Stetson.
In the game against USF, 1241 people attended the match. In the end, FGCU beat USF 3-2.
Pushing to No. 11, they would eventually fall to UNF and during that game, a huge fight broke out and things were thrown onto the field. I literally had to hold people back so they wouldn't get in trouble. The men would end up as the No. 20 team in the nation.
Three players that were seniors played their last home game against Upstate: Justin Gavin, Santiago Ortiz and Jack Blatchford III.
In the conference tournament, FGCU, as the No. 2 seed, would beat Lipsomb 3-2 in semifinals and with No. 5 seeded JU beating No. 1 seeded UNF, FGCU would beat JU in the finals and make it to th national tournament. They would beat USF again 2-2 with 3-0 in penalty kicks before falling to UNC 2-3 in double overtime. FGCU would finish 14-4-3 overall with a 4-1-1 record in conference.
Before the postseason, nine players from the team earned awards.
Ruiz would earn Player of the Year and First Team All-Conference honors. He also was a finalist for MAC Hermann Trophy after he lead the team, conference and the nation in goals scored (22). He earned honors for NSCAA First Team All-American, NSCAA All-Southeast Region First Team, earned National Player of the Week two times.
Then juniors Nicolas Samayoa and Kamar Marriott and redshirt sophomore Arion Sobers-Assue also earned First Team All-Conference honors. Then junior Eli Roubos and redshirt junior Dylan Sacramento earned Second Team All-Conference honors. Freshman Miguel Perez, Shak Adams and Jared Brown were named to the All-Freshman Team.
Ruiz, Sacramento, Marriott and Sobers-Assue were named to the NSCAA All-Southeast Region Teams
The men's soccer would lose head coach Bob Butehorn as he took a job as head coach for USF and taking along his assistant coaches too, but luckily, FGCU was able to secure Jesse Cormier as head coach after sucessful season as head coach for Vermont.
With the women's soccer, it was also successful for them. They had their struggles between games during the season.
Playing and struggling against teams like Ohio State and UCF, the women worked really hard. One of the easiest games they played was against Fairleigh-Dickinson where they won 7-1. They made it to the finals of the conference tournament and beat Lipscomb 2-0 and earned an automatic bid in the national tournament where they fell to UF. The women would finish 14-5-1 overall with a 6-0-1 record in conference.
Leading the charge in goals was Tabby Tindell. Tindell is now named the all-time leader in goals scored in the A-Sun. During the matchup against NJIT at home, Tindell set the A-Sun Conference record in goals scored. She ended up with 66 goals in her final season.
Aside from that, seven players of the women's soccer team earned numerous awards.
Tindell was once again named Player of the Year for the third time in her career as well as earning First Team All-Conference honors for all four years, A-Sun Academic All-Conference Team honors for the third time and earned Senior CLASS Third Team All-American honors, NSCAA First Team All-Southeast Region honors and NSCAA Third Team All-American honors.
Fellow then redshirt seniors Ali Rogers and Paulina Speckmaier and redshirt junior Ashley Parks also earned First Team All-Conference honors.
Freshman Lindsey Patton earned Second Team All-Conference as well as All-Freshman Team honors with fellow teammates Melissa Weck and Emilie Olsen.
Then sophomore Camille Knudstrup aldo earned Academic All-Conference Team honors with Tindell.
FGCU would lose Tindell, Speckmaier, Rogers, Sarah Lowicki, Yazmin Velez and Lauren Knight.
The team managed to sign five freshman to come play for FGCU after signing National Letters of Intent to join the team.
In addition, they signed four transfers to join: Kiana Rugar from Albany, Petra Smetkova from Arkansas, Holly Fritz from FSU and Varin Ness from Carson-Newman.
For the swimming and diving team, former head coach Neal Studd left the team to be head coach for FSU and needed a new head coach to lead the reins and that would be Dave Rollins. Prior to FGCU, Rollins spent 10 years as head coach for Ohio State University.
FGCU would go 12-3 overall with a 3-0 record in conference.
Although FGCU competes in the NCAA, they also compete for the Coastal Collegiate Swimming Association (CCSA).
They made it to the CCSA Championship and won it for the eighth time in nine years over the following nine teams: Liberty, Gardner-Webb, Georgia Southern, Incarnate Word, Campbell, UNC Asheville, UNF, Howard and VMI. As a result, FGCU qualified for the national tournament in Indianapolis.
Award wise, Elmgreen won the Most Outstanding Female Swimmer award because she won the conference crown in both the 100 fly and 200 IM while finishing runner-up in the 200 fly. This marked the third time FGCU won this award.
Wright won the Most Outstanding Female Diver, the first for FGCU.
Latham earned CCSA All-Academic Team honors.
Burdge, Latham, Redding and Teijonsalo also earned CCSA Honorable Mention All-American honors.
Rollins was named Women's Swimming Coach of the Year while one of his assistant coaches, David Boyko, was named Women's Diving Coach of the Year.
FGCU would finish tied for 41st out of 50 teams with Pittsburgh. In the end, USC was the final winner of the national tournament.
No one talks about golf for FGCU because there's really no standings or record for them to tell if they won or not.
On the men's golf team, the players that lead the way were junior Grant Renegar and senior Casper Howells.
Although FGCU finished in fifth place in the conference championship, they had a really good run.
Doug Smith was the only member on the team that won an award as he was named to the A-Sun All-Freshman Team.
On the women's side, they were top notch, depsite finishing second in the conference tournament.
Award wise, senior Megan Blonien earned First Team All-Conference honors.
Junior Madeline Marck-Sherk and freshman Kate Williamson earned Second Team All-Conference honors. In addition, Williamson also earned A-Sun All-Freshman Team honors in the season.
In the fall and partial spring semester, FGCU's athletics continue to grow and will not stop for as long as they want.
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