Before FGCU played UCF, #16 Florida (25-6) shutout RV FSU 3-0 (25-21, 25-20, 25-13) also in Orlando. With the win, the Gators advanced to the second round and awaited the winner between FGCU and UCF. Florida will now go to the second round for the 28th straight year under head coach Mary Wise while the Seminoles have ended their season at 19-10.
It was sophomore Paige Hammons that took most of the reins on offense. Hammons finished with 16 kills and three blocks.
Junior Rachael Kramer and freshman Thayer Hall finished with nine kills each. Kramer was also dominant on the defensive side as she added nine blocks.
Assisting-wise, the Monserez sister, redshirt senior Marlie and freshman Allie, had a combined 36 assists (20 for Marlie, 16 for Allie).
Along with Kramer's nine blocks, junior Allie Gregory also played spot on defensively as she finished with 22 digs and two aces.
For the Seminoles, junior Payton Caffrey led the way offensively with 14 kills and two blocks, Redshirt freshman Adrian Ell and senior Brianne Burkert had a combined 24 assists (11 for Ell, 13 for Burkert) and 16 digs (Ell: 9, Burkert: 7).
Defensively, senior Kelsey Wicinski finished with 14 digs and five assists.
"This was one of our most complete performances all season," said Wise. "One of our goals has always been to be playing the best volleyball at the end. Tonight was the perfect indication of how this team has grown and evolved. They have fought through adversity and have taken on challenges."
"The growth that this team has done, both individually and collectively, is far more important than the number."
Now let's fast forward to FGCU vs UCF. What was at stake for both teams? Well let's state the obvious, the team advances to the second round to face Florida, but both team are riding on multi-match winning streaks (FGCU: 15, UCF: 24).
The Eagles kept swooping and clawing at the Knights in a nail biter of a match, but the third time proved to be the charm for FGCU this season as they upset UCF 3-2 (17-25, 25-22, 25-23, 14-25, 15-7). With the win, FGCU is not only now 2-5 against UCF, but are now going to the second round of the national tournament still at Venue at UCF in Orlando with a program high 16-match winning streak while the Knights' 24-match winning streak, the fourth longest and the longest DI record in school history, came to an end. In addition, the Eagles are the only current A-SUN school with an NCAA Tournament victory.
"I've said all season there's been nothing more rewarding than watching the emotions of our players when we've done something like this," FGCU head coach Matt Botsford said. "Obviously we haven't done something like this before, but winning the conference championship for the first time, now going through this experience. It's just special for me to see that. I'm ecstatic, really pleased with the way we performed and the way we gutted it out. It was obviously a very close match, but in that fifth set, they were aggressive and did everything we asked them to do."
"I'm ecstatic and really pleased with the way we performed and the way we gutted it out was a really close match, but that fifth set, they were aggressive and did all the things we asked for them to do."
Offensively, five Eagles had a double-double in the match: sophomore Cortney VanLiew (25 kills and 12 digs) and Snowy Burnam (15 kills and 26 digs), senior Maggie Rick (27 assists and 11 digs) and freshmen Dana Axner (29 digs and 10 assists) and Chelsea Lockey (18 assists and 12 digs).
"It's a bit of a whirlwind in there right now," Rick said of her thoughts after the match. "We're just so excited. We had a lot of goals for this season, and we had a lot of expectations. We knew we were going to be good. The fact that, especially in my senior year, we have been able to go out and do things that this program has never done is indescribable. It's an incredible experience."
"I think we always kind of knew that we were special and coach believed in us and always having him behind us pushing to be better to be the best that we can be," said VanLiew on the win. "It's just an amazing feeling to not only accomplish that for ourselves, but also the coaching staff, who has been here and I just think like what Maggie said that it's an indescribable feeling and feels unreal.
VanLiew also added an ace and two blocks. With her 25 kills the Seymour native now has 778 career kills and 530 career digs. VanLiew is 23 kills away from becoming the seventh Eagle to reach 800 in her career. In addition to her 12 digs, VanLiew passed Ingrid Felicio (524, 2004-05) for 17th all-time in career digs, and is 23 shy of passing Jill Hopper (552, 2011-13) for 16th all-time.
For Burnam, this was her seventh double-double of the season, 10th in her career. Burnam's 15 kills put her at 439 in her career and is 15 shy from passing Christine Pinder (453, 2012-13) and Marlene Moeller (453, 2013-16) for 19th all-time. Burnam also added an assist. In addition, the Palm City native's 26 digs were a career-high.
Rick's double-double was her 12th this season and 22nd in her career. With her 27 assists, Rick extends her career assist amount to 4,528. In addition, Rick's 11 digs put her at 829 in her career. Rick also added four kills and a block.
For Axner, this was her first collegiate double-double. She also added her second collegiate kill to the mix. With her 29 digs, Axner now has 607 this season (5.19 per set) and has now set the all-time program single season record for most digs as she passed Whitney Hendry's 2005 season dig record (606). In fact, Axner's 607 digs have passed Pinder (603, 2012-13) at 14th all-time in career digs. The Dublin, Ohio native is nine away from passing Jelena Simic (615, 2009, 2011) for 13th all-time.
In addition, since UCF was ranked in the top 25 (#21), this is the first time that the Eagles defeated a nationally ranked team.
"This was Maggie's last season and we talked about all these different benchmarks that we had and it's getting harder and harder to add to those list of firsts," said Botsford on beating a top 25 team. "Before this weekend, we talked about exactly that. We've never beat a ranked team and we're coming in playing a seeded team. It would be a nice thing to do send those seniors off the right way and give some of these younger players experience like that to help raise the bar, so it was a pretty amazing opportunity for us and I'm glad we took advantage of it."
Along with the five Eagles with double-doubles, junior Giovanna "Giogio" Borgiotti also added on to her career as she finished with seven kills, a block and three digs. Borgiotti's seven kills put her at 493 in her career and is seven shy from being the 16th player to reach 500 career kills.
Defensively, along with Axner's 29 digs, the Block Party (Borgiotti, VanLiew, junior Daniele Serrano, seniors Sharonda Pickering and Kaiti Krivdo, and freshman Tori Morris) had a combined eight total blocks (16 block assists) with Serrano and Pickering leading the way with four each. Serrano, Pickering, Krivdo and Morris also added a combined 11 kills to go with VanLiew's 25, Burnam's 15 and Borgiotti's seven for a combined 58 kills.
Despite the four blocks (all block assists), Serrano was held to only one kill in 20 attempts. She now has 613 kills in her career, 362 career total blocks and 308 career blocks assists.
Senior Karissa Rhoades also contributed with two digs, which put her at 876 in her career.
Along with Botsford, long time assistant coach Daniel Mahy and first time FGCU assistant coach Stephanie Zelinski also earned their first DI national tournament win as coaches. Mahy earned his 266th career win with the Eagles and 294th overall while Zelinski earned her 55th win.
For the Knights, Melville turned in her 22nd double-double of the year. The American Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year went for 24 kills, 16 digs and three blocks.
Nerissa Moravec matched her career-high with 11 kills at a blistering .526 attack percentage. The redshirt sophomore also led the way, along with Amber Olson, with five blocks.
The loss spelled an end to landmark career of senior Jordan Pingel, easily the best libero and one of the top players in program history. The Colorado Springs native left it all on the court for the final time, recording 26 digs on the night. With her second save of the evening, Pingel broke the single-season digs record. The single-season and career digs champ at UCF finished with 597 on the year and 2,262 for her four seasons at UCF.
Freshman Amber Olson Olson had the lion’s share of setting duties with her 10th double-double of the year, a 42-dime, 15-dig performance. Alli Sabol also stepped up in a mixed setter-right side role. The Dublin, Ohio, native notched 10 assists with three digs and one block.
In the opening set, UCF jumped out to a 10-4 lead, pushed it to as many as eight and never trailed to take the lead. FGCU responded by scoring the first three points of the next set, punctuated by a kill from VanLiew. The lead grew to eight 13 points later, although UCF trimmed the deficit to 19-17 late in the set. Borgiotti answered with a kill to spur a 3-0 run. VanLiew and Burnam added two kills late before Pickering evened the match with a right-side kill.
The momentum continued in the third set for the Eagles as they scored three of the first four points. UCF bounced back to take a 6-4 lead, but a free-ball kill from Axner spurred a 4-0 run as the Eagles took a 10-7 lead. The Knights rallied to tie it at 11, but VanLiew, Pickering and Burnam each recorded kills during a 7-0 run. UCF rallied to even it up at 22 apiece, but VanLiew responded with a kill, followed by a UCF ball-handling error. Rick then ended the set with a dump kill to give FGCU a 2-1 lead.
In the fourth set, UCF scored the first three points, led by as many as 10 and never trailed en route to forcing a deciding set. FGCU scored four of the first six points in the fifth and reeled off four straight moments later, highlighted by three kills from VanLiew, to take an 8-3 lead into the side switch and media timeout.
Burnam added another kill to make it 10-5. A successful attack from Borgiotti, followed by back-to-back attack errors from UCF, made it 13-6. The Eagles then got another kill from Burnam before capturing the match on an attack error by the Knights.
First Round Match Scores:
Texas Regional:Texas State (26-6) def Rice (24-6) 3-1 ( 23-25, 25-22, 25-22, 27-25)
Host #5 Texas (20-4) def Stephen F. Austin (32-2) 3-0 (25-14, 25-17, 25-21)
Oregon Region:
#25 Baylor (19-8) def Hawaii (18-8) 3-2 (23-25, 23-25, 25-14, 26-24, 16-14)
#15 Oregon ( def New Mexico State 3-1 (25-22, 18-25, 25-21, 25-11)
Wisconsin Region:
#6 Wisconsin (22-6) def Green Bay (22-10) 3-0 (25-9, 27-25, 25-15)
Pepperdine (21-8) def Northern Iowa (24-9) 3-2 (25-22, 25-21, 19-25, 20-25, 15-13)
NIVC First Round Match Scores:
Bradley 3, Bowling Green 2 (26-24, 21-25, 23-25, 25-21, 15-13)
Iowa State 3, Drake 0 (25-16, 27-25, 25-22)
Wichita St. 3, Central Arkansas 2 (20-25, 25-18, 25-13, 23-25, 15-11)
North Texas 3, Tulsa 1 (13-25, 25-17, 25-23, 25-21)
Fresno St. 3, UC Santa Barbara 2 (25-23, 22-25, 25-16, 26-28, 15-11)
UNLV 3, UC Irvine 0 (25-19, 25-23, 25-19)
Portland 3, Northern Colorado 0 (25-19, 25-15, 25-18)
Utah Valley 3, Wyoming 2 (11-25, 28-26, 23-25, 25-22, 21-19)
California Baptist 3, Little Rock 2 (17-25, 25-12, 25-17, 20-25, 15-11)
Tulane 3, Arkansas State 2 (23-25, 27-25, 22-25, 25-8, 15-13)
Valparaiso 3, Ball State 1 (25-9, 13-25, 25-23, 25-18)
Miami-Ohio 3, Northern Kentucky 0 (25-14, 25-18, 25-22)
College of Charleston 3, St. John’s 1 (19-25, 25-20, 26-24, 25-18)
Georgia Tech 3, USF 2 (19-25, 14-25, 25-21, 25-17, 15-9)
Radford 3, Appalachian State 1 (23-25, 25-17, 25-20, 25-19)
Clemson 3, Alabama A&M 0 (25-9, 25-19, 25-15)
Up Next:
The Eagles prepare for round two against #16 Florida on Friday, November 30 at 7 p.m. still at The Venue at UCF in Orlando. The winner of the second round advances to the BYU Regional in Provo, Utah and will face either #4 BYU (27-1), Stony Brook (21-8), RV Utah (18-13) and RV Denver (27-2). Honestly, chances are it's gonna be #4 BYU that wins the first and second round.
Series History vs UF:
This will be the second time both teams face each other. The first time was on August 25, 2012 where the Gators won 3-0 in Gainsville. It will remain on UCF's athletics page
Livestream Link: https://www.ucfknights.tv/game/tbd-at-tbd-on-11302018
Liveestats Link: https://www.ncaa.com/game/volleyball-women/d1/2018/11/30/fgcu-florida
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