Mocs Sweep Rollins on Dig Pink Night

LAKELAND, Fla. – The Florida Southern volleyball team returned home Tuesday night to make up one of the two matches lost due to Hurricane Ian sweeping over the Sunshine State. The Moccasins welcomed in Rollins College for the annual Dig Pink match to support breast cancer awareness and education. The two teams battled close in the opening two sets with FSC edging the Tars in both periods before the Mocs blew open the match in the third to sweep the contest, 3-0.
 
The victory improves Florida Southern's record to 9-7 overall and 4-5 in Sunshine State Conference play. The Tars fell to 4-14 on the year and 2-8 in league play.
 
Junior Mackenzie Petermann was once again the driving force on offense for the Mocs as she put down a match-high 16 kills on 38 swings while compiling a .316 hitting percentage. Petermann added seven digs and a block to her stat line as well. Senior Ali Travis nearly had a double-double with nine kills and 12 digs while chipping in a team-high tying four blocks. Graduate student Emma Shaddix added eight kills and four digs. She posted a .316 hitting percentage on 19 swings.
 
Senior setter Mika Garza dished out 36 assists while digging up six balls. She also had a service ace and a kill. Graduate student libero Beatrice Formilan led the way in digs with a match-high 22 while adding a service ace.
 
Travis, sophomore Madison Fowler and senior Jana Gilic each tied for the team lead in blocks with four as Travis and Fowler each had four block assists and Gilic added three block assists and one solo stop.
 
Lana Gerard led the Tars with 13 kills while Emma Begley chipped in seven.
 
The Mocs out-hit the Tars .210 to .147  while out-blocking the visitors 8-3.
 
The opening set was a back-and-forth affair with 18 tie scores and five lead changes. Neither team was able to grab more than a two-point lead the entire set. Down 25-24 late in the period, the Mocs were able to tally three-straight points including kills from Shaddix and Petermann and an attack error by the Tars to end the set 27-25.
 
The second set was very similar to the first with both teams going toe-to-toe but it was the Tars who held the lead most of the period. Down 20-17 late in the stanza, the Mocs used a timeout to spark a 5-0 run to reverse the advantage. Petermann opened the run with a kill followed by a Rollins attack error. The third point of the run came off a block from Travis and Fowler which tied the set at 20-20. A kill from Travis followed by an attack error from Rollins gave FSC a 22-20 lead. The Tars were able to battle back and tie the set at 22-22 but kills from Travis, Petermann and Shaddix with one bad set sandwiched in between gave the Mocs a 25-23 victory.  
 
The third and final set was all Mocs as FSC jumped out to a 14-5 lead and never looked back. The Tars were able to make a late rally but the set ended in FSC's favor 25-18.
 
Florida Southern will now turn its attention to the Gulf South Conference/Sunshine State Conference Regional Crossover this weekend in Hoover, Ala. The Mocs will take on UAH, Shorter and Montevallo all out of the GSC over the weekend. For a full list of dates and times check FSCMocs.com.
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