FORT MYERS, Fla. – The Florida Gulf Coast University volleyball team dropped a pair of matches Saturday at the FGCU Homewood Suites Invitational with a 3-0 (25-19,25-15,25-12) loss to UCF and a 3-1 (25-14,20-25,25-14,25-20) defeat at the hands of Furman at Alico Arena. The Green and Blue are now 2-4 overall.
Tournament champ UCF hit .424 as a team as the Knights defeated the Eagles, 3-0. Four UCF players registered double digit kills in the sweep.
Kayla Keller led the Knights with 14 kills, while Angelica Crump added 11 kills for UCF (5-1). Rachel Vukson ran the Knight offense and finished with 45 assists and Meredith Murphy recorded 13 digs.
FGCU struggled from the beginning of the match and finished with a .077 hitting percentage. Senior Jelena Simic (Lazarevac, Serbia/Kolubara Technical/Seward County CC) led the Green and Blue with seven kills, while freshman setter Gigi Meyer (Gainesville, Fla./Buchholz HS) had 16 assists for the Eagles.
In the final match of the tournament, FGCU fell, 3-1, to the Paladins of Furman. Furman jumped out to a 14-10 lead in the opening set and extended their lead to as many as nine points (23-14) before recording a 25-14 set one win.
The two teams battled through a back-and-forth second set, with FGCU using a 9-3 run to jump out to a 19-14 lead. Holding a 19-15 advantage, the Green and Blue used a 5-2 run to take a 23-17 lead and went on to win the set 25-20 to tie the match at 1-1 heading into the break.
In the third set, Furman jumped out to an 18-9 lead and never let up, winning 25-14 to grab a 2-1 lead in the match.
The fourth set saw the Eagles fall behind 4-3 and they were never able to find a way to tie the match or regain the lead as the Paladins took the game 25-20 and the match 3-1.
Freshmen Olivia Mesner (Boca Raton, Fla./Spanish River HS) and Jill Hopper (Muncie, Ind./Yorktown HS) each finished with a match-high 13 kills. Sophomore setter Camil Dominguez (Santo Domingo, D.R./Santa Teresita) paced FGCU with 45 assists, and senior Holly Youngquist (Estero, Fla./Evangelical Christian HS) led the Eagles' defensive attack with 21 digs.
FGCU will return to the court next weekend when they head to Oxford, Ohio to participate in the Miami (OH) Invitational (Sept. 9-10). The Eagles will open with the tournament host Miami (OH) Redhawks on Friday, September 9 at 7 p.m., before facing Alabama A&M (12:30 p.m.) and Radford (5 p.m.) on Saturday, September 10.
2011 FGCU Homewood Suites Volleyball Invitational All-Tournament Team
UCF - Angelica Crump – Tournament MVP
UCF - Meredith Murphy – All-Tournament Libero
USC - Alex Jupiter
USC - Lauren Williams
UCF - Rachel Vukson
Furman - Kelly Kirby
FGCU – Jill Hopper
