Florida Southern Remains Perfect in SSC Play on Family Day

LAKELAND, Fla. – The Florida Southern College volleyball team celebrated Family Day inside the George W. Jenkins Field House Saturday afternoon as the Moccasins welcomed in Rollins College for a Sunshine State Conference tilt. The Mocs welcomed their friends and family on the court for pregame announcements before getting to work sweeping the Tars, 3-0.
 
The victory is the fourth in a row for the Mocs as FSC improves to 8-2 on the season including a perfect 2-0 in SSC action. The Tars fell to 9-7 overall and 0-5 in league play.
 
Graduate student Mackenzie Petermann led the way for the Moccasins Saturday as she tallied her 38^th career double-double with a team-best 13 kills and 10 digs. She also added two service aces to tie for the team lead and chipped in a block. The Richmond Hill, Ga. native had just two hitting errors and finished with a .367 hitting percentage. Seniors Zoe Lowe and Sandra Sasaki each finished with 10 kills in the win. Lowe added three digs and a pair of blocks while Sasaki had six digs, a service ace and a block.
 
Junior Morgan Word led the blocking effort with a team-best four stops to go along with four kills on just six swings. Graduate student libero Caroline Chambers had 20 digs in just three sets of action for an outstanding 6.67 digs per set. She also added eight assists, coming up just shy of a double-double, and a service ace. Sophomore setter Mary Kate Mulvaney handed out a team-best 20 assists while tying for the team lead in service aces with two. She also had six digs in the victory. Senior Kiersten Kraus added 12 assists, 10 digs and a service ace for her fifth double-double of the season and third-straight.
 
Lana Gerard led the Rollins effort with 11 kills and four digs while all other hitter were held below eight kills.
 
FSC out-hit the Tars .250 to .136 while the Mocs also won the service battle (7-3) and digs (57-43) but it was the Tars who took the blocking battle (8-6).
 
FSC jumped out to an 8-2 lead in the opening minutes of the first set and never looked back. The Moccasins went on to cruise to a 25-13 victory in the set. The second set did not start off quite as quickly but after a couple of runs the Mocs found themselves ahead 20-14 late. The Tars battled back to cut the deficit to just three at 21-18 but that would be as close as they would come as the Mocs went on to win 25-20. The Tars led for the majority of the third set but the Mocs did not want to advance to a fourth set and a 7-1 late in the period gave the hosts a 23-22 lead. The Mocs and Tars traded the next three points to sit tied at 24-24. A Rollins service error followed by a Madison Fowler and Kraus block to close out the match 26-24.   
 
FSC will be back in action Tuesday, October 8 at 7 p.m. as the Moccasins travel to Saint Leo for the Moccasins first road test of SSC play. The match is a remake of the match originally postponed due to Hurricane Helene earlier this season.
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