The FGCU volleyball team (25-4, 13-2 A-SUN) will close out the regular season with one final road trip as they travel to Newark, New Jersey to take on NJIT (1-29, 0-14 A-SUN) at the NJIT Wellness and Events Center Friday night, November 15 at 6 pm.
Last Time Out/What's at Stake:
The Eagles, who remain in first place in the A-SUN, wrapped up this past weekend on the road splitting on two matches. They would lose 3-1 to Kennesaw State Friday night before shutting out Lipscomb Sunday afternoon. As a result of defeating Lipscomb, the Eagles clinched a share of the A-SUN Regular Season Championship. A win over NJIT will give the Eagles the A-SUN Regular Season Championship.
What It Still Do VanLiew:
Junior Cortney VanLiew continues her dominance offensively and defensively. Offensively, VanLiew leads the team with 387 kills and 21 aces while defensively she has 197 digs and 47 blocks (nine solo). On the weekend, the defending A-SUN Player of the Year had 32 kills, an ace, 14 digs and four blocks.
During the match against Lipscomb, VanLiew surpassed Brooke Youngquist-Sweat (1,173, 2004-07) for second all-time in kills as she now has 1,177 in her career. In digs, VanLiew has 732 in her career and remains 34 shy of surpassing Chandra Lefever (765, 2006-07, 09) for 12th all-time.
In solo blocks, VanLiew has 24 in her career and needs one to surpass Sharonda Pickering (24, 2017-18) for ninth all-time.
Lockdown Weekend:
On the weekend for sophomore Chelsea Lockey, she had 77 assists, 16 digs and six blocks. Currently, Lockey has 1,077 assists in her name along with 52 blocks (five solo). In her career, Lockey has 1,553 career assists and remains 256 of surpassing Laura Manovill (1,809, 2004-05) for fourth all-time.
Spicy Style:
For senior Daniele Serrano, she continues to stuff through the competition both offensively and dominantly defensively. Currently, Serrano has 193 kills in her name along with 104 blocks (15 solo). On the weekend, Serrano had 12 kills and 12 blocks (two solo) while being named A-SUN Player of the Week last week.
In her career, Serrano has 808 career kills (eighth all-time) and needs 30 to surpass Ericka Fonseca (837, 2005-06) for seventh all-time. Meanwhile, Serrano continues to stop the opposing teams' offense throughout her career as she is second in the A-SUN in total blocks (467). She only needs eight to surpass ETSU's Meredith Hardy (474, 2010-13) as the all-time leader in total blocks in the A-SUN.
Tor of the Block:
Another benefactor with Serrano, predominantly defensively, is sophomore Tori Morris. Morris is second on the team in blocks (88, 12 solo) while adding 119 kills this season. Morris had 10 kills and nine blocks (two solo) on the weekend against Kennesaw State and Lipscomb.
Meanwhile in her career, Morris has 160 total blocks (140 block assists) in her name, which are both 14th all-time. In fact, Morris also has 21 career solo and is in a four way tie with Cara Ziegler (21, 2006-07), Karina Mambuca (21, 2012-13) and Roberta Santos (21, 2007-08) for 13th all-time. She needs six total blocks to surpass Elenora Kazarian (165, 2014-15) for 13th all-time, 13 block assist to surpass Sharonda Pickering (176, 2017-18) for 13th all-time and one solo bock to surpass Ziegler, Mambuca and Santos.
Snowy Lets it Snow:
Like Serrano, junior Snowy Burnam continues to play big both offensively and defensively. Burnam has 188 kills, 205 digs and 60 blocks (three solo). Burnam had 14 kills, 15 digs and six blocks (one solo) on the weekend.
In her career, Burnam has 633 career kills, 576 digs and 176 total blocks (164 block assists). Burnam needs 17 kills to surpass Jelena Simic (649, 2009, 2011) for 14th all-time, 24 digs to become the 17th Eagle to reach 600 digs, 25 digs to surpass Christine Pinder (603, 2012-13) for 16th all-time, one block to surpass Pickering (176, 2017-18) for 10th all-time and two block assists to surpass Kaitlin Holm (167, 2011-13) for 10th all-time.
Last Season Sharpening:
Axner currently has 504 digs (5.42 digs per set) in her name, while adding 25 aces. Axner had 48 digs and three aces against Kennesaw and Lipscomb. In fact, her three aces against Lipscomb were a career-high for the defending A-SUN Defensive Player of the Year.
Aces All In:
Speaking of aces, redshirt senior Amanda Carroll has a recent change in her role predominantly playing defense, but still playing offense. Carroll leads the team with 34 aces while adding 66 kills and 214 digs. Carroll had nine kills and 23 digs on the weekend.
In her career, Carroll remains the program leader in career kills (1,461) and is second in program history with 135 career aces needing only five to surpass Ana Kokanovic (139, 2007-08) and become the all-time leader in career aces. In career digs, Carroll has 1,216 (fifth all-time) in her name and will be in a neck-and-neck battle with Axner.
Aces vs Axes:
There is a battle between Axner and Carroll in career digs. Axner has 1,128 career digs (sixth all-time) in her name, while Carroll has 1,216 (fifth all-time). Although Carroll is ahead of Axner by 88 digs, both are looking to surpass Youngquist-Sweat (1,369, 2004-07) for fourth all-time.
Big Coach Wins:
Head coach Matt Botsford is on path for two milestones: 200 career wins as head coach for the Eagles and 400 career wins as a coach overall (head coach or assistant). Botsford has 140 career wins with FGCU and 381 career wins as a coach overall.
Longtime assistant coach Daniel Mahy is the only coach thus far that has coached with three different head coach at FGCU, Jaye Flood (2004-05), Dave Nicholls (2006-07*, 2008-13) and Botsford (2014-present) while coaching with Flood and Botsford when they earned their 100th career wins. Entering his 14th season with the Eagles, Mahy has 291 career wins with the Eagles and 318 overall.
Second-year assistant coach Stephanie Zelinski has also made her mark with FGCU. While currently Zelinski has 52 wins with the Eagles, she has 79 overall wins in her name, which includes one season stints with Wake Forest (12 wins), Davidson (10 wins) and Middle Tennessee State (MTSU) (seven wins).
*side note: Mahy was with Nicholls at DII Barry University prior and upon his return to FGCU and had 27 career wins with Barry.
Updated A-SUN Standings:
*1. FGCU (25-4, 13-2 A-SUN)
*2. Kennesaw State (18-8, 11-3 A-SUN)
*3. Liberty (17-9, 10-4 A-SUN)
*4. Lipscomb (13-11, 9-4 A-SUN)
5. Stetson (10-13, 7-6 A-SUN)
6. UNF (14-16, 6-8 A-SUN)
7. Jacksonville (10-19, 5-9 A-SUN)
8. North Alabama (4-23, 2-12 A-SUN)
9. NJIT (1-29, 0-14 A-SUN)
Scouting NJIT:
Personal Opinion: Do I really need to make it obvious about NJIT? I think so.
Since their arrival in the A-SUN in 2015, the NJIT volleyball team has not had a decent winning season at all, granted their "best season" was in 2017 where they went 12-19 overall and 2-12 in A-SUN play.
And stating the obvious, they are not going to the postseason... again. Surprise??? No.
The Highlanders are coming off of a nail-biting 3-2 loss to North Alabama in Florence. The weekend for the Highlanders will be a senior day weekend as they will play Stetson Sunday afternoon.
As stated above, the Highlanders will not be competing in the A-SUN Conference Tournament due to their conference record.
Senior Madi Busler continues to lead the Highlanders offensively as she leads the team with 209 kills, 168 digs and 23 blocks (one solo). Busler had a double-double of 18 kills and 12 digs. Freshman Sarah Merritt follows Busler with 191 kills and 26 blocks. Merritt had eight kills and a block against North Alabama.
Two other players that follow Busler and Merritt are freshman Susan Blake and Courtney Branch as they each have 135 kills. Blake had six kills against North Alabama, while Branch had 11 kills two blocks.
Senior Liz Benson continues to lead the Highlanders with 589 assists, 15 aces and 200 digs. She had a double-double of 50 assists and 10 digs to go along with an ace.
Defensively, Branch leads the team with 74 blocks while senior Olivia Welch has 328 digs in her name. Welch had 23 digs against North Alabama.
Series History:
The Eagles are 9-0 overall against the Highlanders which includes their last matchup on October 19 where the Eagles won 3-0. In fact, the Eagles have defeated the Highlanders in straight sets in all nine matches.
Opinion: Will FGCU do that again? I wouldn't be surprise, so yes. Will NJIT Win a set against FGCU? Most likely, no.
How to Keep Up:
Livestats will be available and will air on the NJIT Highlanders athletics website.
Livestats Link: https://www.njithighlanders.com/sidearmstats/wvball/summary
Livestream Link: https://www.njithighlanders.com/watch/?Live=372&type=Live
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