Mocs Prevail in Five-Set Thriller on Senior Day

LAKELAND, Fla. – The Florida Southern College volleyball team celebrated Senior Day prior to Saturday's match as the Moccasins honored seven seniors including Caroline Chambers, Mackenzie Petermann, Zoe Lowe, Madison Barton, Sandra Sasaki, Madison Fowler and Kiersten Kraus. The Mocs out-lasted the visiting Sharks of Nova Southeastern, 3-2. The match concluded the regular season for both the Mocs and Sharks who were both ranked in the most recent South Region Rankings and hope to receive an invite to the South Region Championship.
 
The victory pushes Florida Southern's record to 15-13 on the season and 9-11 in Sunshine State Conference play. The Sharks fall to 20-10 overall and 11-9 in league play.
 
It was once again Sasaki leading the way offensively for the Mocs as she tallied 17 kills and five digs in the victory. She also hit .333 for the match with five errors. Petermann came up just short of double-digits with nine kills while adding a team-high tying three service aces, 10 digs and five blocks.
 
Fowler, Kraus and Lowe all finished with eight kills. Kraus added five digs, four blocks and four assists while Lowe added two digs and two blocks. Fowler led the way in blocking with seven which pushed her to a tie for 10^th in the FSC Record Book for career blocks with 325. She tied Michelle Kurtgis (1983-86) who also finished her career with 325 blocks.
 
Chambers led the backline with 15 digs while sophomore Mary Kate Mulvaney dished out 18 assists while picking up eight digs and a team-high tying three service aces. Freshman Mallory Baruch added 16 assists and seven digs.
 
NSU was led by Olivia Aniol who finished with 18 kills in the loss while Taylor Stockman added 13.
 
The Mocs hit .192 for the match while holding NSU to .127. NSU won the serving battle with 15 aces compared to FSC's 10 while the Mocs edged the Sharks in blocks 14-12. Both teams finished with 48 assists and 52 kills while the Sharks had a slight edge in digs 63-61.
 
The Sharks stormed out of the gates and took a dominating 25-14 first set victory. The Mocs turned it around in the second as they took a 25-22 victory followed by a 25-20 win in the third. FSC looked to be in control late in the fourth leading 24-22 but the Sharks scored four-straight to force a fifth set, 26-24. The fifth set was back-and-forth early with the Mocs leading 8-6 at the switchover. NSU scored two points to tie the set at 8-8 but a kill by Petermann, followed by an NSU error and then a Fowler block gave the Mocs an 11-8 lead. The Sharks cut it to 11-9 before another quick spurt by the Mocs gave them match point at 14-9. The Sharks would not go down without a fight as they answered with their own 3-0 run to cut the lead to 14-12 before a Sasaki kill ended the match, 15-12.
 
The Mocs will now await the announcement of the 2024 NCAA Championship field which will be streamed on NCAA.com on Monday.  
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