After a rough two game road trip losing to UNF and JU, the FGCU volleyball team (18-8, 8-3 A-SUN) managed to bounce back and recover by shutting out NJIT (11-17, 1-10 A-SUN) 3-0 (25-19, 25-15, 25-21). The Eagles still maintain being in the conference tournament as the No. 3 seed, but that could change and they could possibly get the No. 1 or No. 2 seed, but the No. 1 seed will be tricky.
If FGCU wins the three remaining matches and either Kennesaw or JU lose any of their matches, including facing each other, FGCU could get at least the No. 2 seed and a first round bye in the conference tournament.
Fast forward to the match against NJIT, FGCU once again swept the series against the Highlanders and are now 6-0 overall.
"I was really pleased with our performance, especially because of the team's response to a new lineup," FGCU head coach Matt Botsford said. "They stayed poised, and I thought those first two sets were really encouraging. We got a little loose attacking in the third, but the floor defense was much improved in that set, which allowed us to close it out.
Shockingly, junior outside hitter Amanda Carroll did not play, but returning to the lineup after being sidelined with an injury was sophomore outside hitter Giovanna "Gio-Gio" Borgiotti. The Vienna, Virginia native had a game-high and season-high 14 kills along with one assist, two blocks and three digs.
Junior setter Maggie Rick had one kill, one service ace, one block and four digs to go with her 42 assists.
Freshman outside hitter Snowy Burnam was one dig shy of a double-double, but finished with 10 kills, nine digs and one block. This was Burnam's fourth straight match with at least 10 kills.
Defensively, junior libero Karissa Rhoades had one assist to go with the 11 digs she produced while junior right side hitter Kaiti Krivdo and freshman outside hitter Cortney VanLiew. Krivdo had five blocks to go along with the nine kills and one dig she contributed to while VanLiew had four blocks to go with the eight kills and one dig she contributed.
"Kaiti and Snowy played great tonight and both continue to improve with every opportunity they get. Getting Gio back was a big plus, too. I thought she responded well after a pretty lengthy layoff," added Botsford.
Senior libero Courtney Stephens also also contributed with one assist and three digs. Recently, the lone senior from Winter Park reached 1,000 career digs in the match against UNF and currently has 1,018 career digs.
For the Highlanders, senior outside hitter Tess Albyn had 10 kills, one assist, one block and four digs. Sophomore setter Liz Benson had 25 assists along with three kills, one ace, one block and six digs
No players had double digits in digs. The highest amount of digs was seven from sophomore libero Olivia Welsch.
FGCU now has a total of 117 shutout wins since joining NCAA DI in 2007.
Up next, the Eagles will travel to Spartanburg, South Carolina to take on USC Upstate and wrap up their final road match of the season before coming back home to finish the regular season with two matches against Lipscomb and Kennesaw.
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