Mocs Fall in Five-Set Thriller with Eckerd

LAKELAND, Fla. – The Florida Southern College volleyball team welcomed Eckerd College Tuesday night for the annual Dig Pink match. The Mocs and Tritons battled through five sets with the Tritons coming out on top, 3-2. Florida Southern won the second and fourth sets while the Tritons took sets one, three and five.
 
The loss drops FSC's record to 9-5 on the season and evens out the Mocs' conference mark to 3-3 while the Tritons improved to 9-4 on the year while moving to 2-3 in league action.
 
Senior Sandra Sasaki led the offensive effort for the Mocs with a match-high 15 kills while committing just two hitting errors and finishing with a .406 hitting percentage. She also tallied eight digs and a service ace. Graduate student Mackenzie Petermann finished with 11 kills, two service aces, three blocks and a pair of digs. Senior Zoe Lowe rounded out the double-digit leaders with 10 kills and three digs.
 
Sophomore setter Mary Kate Mulvaney led the way with 22 assists while also picking up three service aces and five digs. Graduate student libero Caroline Chambers tallied a career-best five service aces while leading the backline with 14 digs. Senior Kiersten Kraus added 17 assists, seven kills, seven digs, three blocks and a service ace.
 
The Tritons were led by Kinga Michalska who came away with 13 kills, five service aces and seven digs.
 
As a team, the Tritons tallied 15 service aces including two athletes with five each. The Mocs countered with 14 service aces of their own. FSC also produced 16 service errors while the Tritons had just nine.
 
The Mocs out-blocked the Tritons 9-3 while Eckerd won the dig battle 44-40. Both teams had similar hitting numbers with the Tritons finishing at .171 and the Mocs just edging them at .185.
 
Eckerd took the opening set 25-23 before the Mocs came back and captured the second set 25-19. The third set went back to the visitors at 25-22 before the Mocs once again responded and grabbed a 25-23 victory in the fourth. The fifth was all Tritons early but the Mocs tried to fight back and fell 15-9.
 
The Mocs will now hit the road for six-straight matches beginning this Friday, Oct. 25 at Nova Southeastern for a 7 p.m. match. The Sharks were the top team in the others receiving votes category in the most recent AVCA Top-25 poll.
  Read Full Article