Junior and reigning A-SUN player of the year Cortney VanLiew tallied a match-high 22 kills along with five digs. With her 22 kills, VanLiew became the seventh Eagle to reach 800 in her career. She now has 812 and needs 115 more to surpass Kaitlin Holm (926, 2011-13) for fourth-place in the program's Division I era. VanLiew's 22 digs was her sixth of 20 or more in her two plus year career.
Senior Daniele Serrano added 13 kills at a .458 clip to go along with her four block assists. Serrano's 13 kills put her at 627 in her career and is 23 away from passing Jelena Semic (649, 2009, 2011) for 13th all-time. As for her blocking, Serrano now has 313 block assists and 367 total blocks.
Sophomore Chelsey Lockey led all players with 48 assists and registered 11 digs for her fourth career double-double.
Defensively, sophomore Dana Axner had a match-high 28 digs with four assists. With her 28 digs, Axner now has 652 career digs and is 30 away from surpassing Vanessa Benke (681, 2013-15) for eighth on the same list. Friday night represented the 14th 20 + dig performance of Axner's career, and it was tied for her third most in an FGCU uniform.
Freshmen Erin Shomaker and Aja Jones also made their impact on the match, finishing third and fourth on the team, respectively, in kills. Jones had seven kills and hit .385 with four block assists and a solo block, while Shomaker chipped in nine kills while hitting .412. Jones made her debut after graduating from Venice High School while Shoemaker graduated from Granville High School.
Classmate Shelby Beisner also made her debut after graduating from Charlotte High School. Beisner had one dig in the match.
Redshirt senior Amanda Carroll and junior Snowy Burnam each added nine digs. Carroll added two kills, putting her at 1,397 in her career with her career dig total put her up to 1,011, which puts her 74 shy of passing Courtney Stephens (1,084, 2014-17) for third place on the Division I era list. In addition, Carroll added one ace that put her at 102 in her career. Meanwhile, Burnam added five kills and three blocks. Burnam's five kills put her at 451 in her career.
As a team, FGCU hit. 313 with just 15 errors over 144 attempts.
In the opening set, the Eagles managed to take a 22-14 lead after losing four of the first five points. Then, a back-and-forth second set saw Akron take a 24-21 lead, but Burnam produced a kill and then teamed with Serrano for a double-block to knot things at 24. Akron took the next two, though, to even the match up.
Following that, things remained close as each team traded a 4-0 run to open the third. A pair of kills from Shomaker helped give FGCU an 8-5 lead and another mini-run later helped the Eagles take a five-point lead before finishing off a 25-19 win. A 10-2 run midway through the final set then allowed the Green and Blue to cruise to a match-clinching set win.
Junior Alexis Adleta led the Zips with 15 kills, while classmate Emily Weigand had 37 assists. Defensively, junior Taylor Sharrits had 21 digs.
"It took a little bit of time to find our rhythm," FGCU head coach Matt Botsford said. "I thought Akron did a really good job. We had difficulty managing their left sides for a large portion of the match. We finally figured something out at the end, but it took longer than we would have liked. We had three freshmen play and two that had a significant role in Aja (Jones) and Erin (Shomaker). Those two did great. It's tough to come into an environment like this, but I thought they were outstanding."
"We did a number of things well today, one of which was pass at a high level," said Akron head coach Tom Hanna. "Unfortunately, we weren't as sharp as we could be offensively, and we made some service errors that were costly. Fortunately, these are fixable things that we can hopefully correct against a very good FGCU team tonight."
The win for Botsford was his 116th win as head coach while long-time assistant coach Daniel Mahy earned his 267th win as a coach for the Eagles and his 295th win overall that included 28 wins with DII Barry University
Up Next:
FGCU will now get a quick turnaround as they will host reigning NCAA Tournament participant Bryant at 11 a.m. on Saturday before closing the event with a 7 p.m. tilt against San Diego State in Alico Arena. There will be free Dunkin' for all fans while supplies last for the morning match, while the evening will feature Stars and Stripes Night where marketing will give away free mini USA flags and honor veterans and first responders throughout the night.
Redshirt senior Amanda Carroll and junior Snowy Burnam each added nine digs. Carroll added two kills, putting her at 1,397 in her career with her career dig total put her up to 1,011, which puts her 74 shy of passing Courtney Stephens (1,084, 2014-17) for third place on the Division I era list. In addition, Carroll added one ace that put her at 102 in her career. Meanwhile, Burnam added five kills and three blocks. Burnam's five kills put her at 451 in her career.
As a team, FGCU hit. 313 with just 15 errors over 144 attempts.
In the opening set, the Eagles managed to take a 22-14 lead after losing four of the first five points. Then, a back-and-forth second set saw Akron take a 24-21 lead, but Burnam produced a kill and then teamed with Serrano for a double-block to knot things at 24. Akron took the next two, though, to even the match up.
Following that, things remained close as each team traded a 4-0 run to open the third. A pair of kills from Shomaker helped give FGCU an 8-5 lead and another mini-run later helped the Eagles take a five-point lead before finishing off a 25-19 win. A 10-2 run midway through the final set then allowed the Green and Blue to cruise to a match-clinching set win.
Junior Alexis Adleta led the Zips with 15 kills, while classmate Emily Weigand had 37 assists. Defensively, junior Taylor Sharrits had 21 digs.
"It took a little bit of time to find our rhythm," FGCU head coach Matt Botsford said. "I thought Akron did a really good job. We had difficulty managing their left sides for a large portion of the match. We finally figured something out at the end, but it took longer than we would have liked. We had three freshmen play and two that had a significant role in Aja (Jones) and Erin (Shomaker). Those two did great. It's tough to come into an environment like this, but I thought they were outstanding."
"We did a number of things well today, one of which was pass at a high level," said Akron head coach Tom Hanna. "Unfortunately, we weren't as sharp as we could be offensively, and we made some service errors that were costly. Fortunately, these are fixable things that we can hopefully correct against a very good FGCU team tonight."
The win for Botsford was his 116th win as head coach while long-time assistant coach Daniel Mahy earned his 267th win as a coach for the Eagles and his 295th win overall that included 28 wins with DII Barry University
Up Next:
FGCU will now get a quick turnaround as they will host reigning NCAA Tournament participant Bryant at 11 a.m. on Saturday before closing the event with a 7 p.m. tilt against San Diego State in Alico Arena. There will be free Dunkin' for all fans while supplies last for the morning match, while the evening will feature Stars and Stripes Night where marketing will give away free mini USA flags and honor veterans and first responders throughout the night.
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