JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – In the final regular season contest of the 2014 campaign, the FGCU volleyball team fell to Jacksonville University 3-2 Saturday evening. The Eagles picked up strong wins in the first two sets (25-18, 25-15) but fell behind 25-18 in the third set.  Jacksonville went on to earn wins in set four and five (25-23, 15-10) for the come-from behind victory. With the loss, the Eagles finish the regular season with a record of 19-10 including an 11-3 Atlantic Sun mark, while the Dolphins cap the year at 16-13 with a 7-7 conference record.
 
Even with the final conference result, the Eagles sealed second place in the Atlantic Sun Conference for the 2014 season. The team will hold the second seed in next week's Atlantic Sun Conference championship tournament.
 
"We came out in those first two sets executing at a level very similar to what we saw last night against UNF," said head coach Matt Botsford. "Our serve and pass game was excellent and we were doing a very good job on the defensive end. After the break, things shifted drastically and Jacksonville found a great rhythm. We couldn't get the stops we needed and never found a way to counter the pressure we were up against. I'm disappointed that we couldn't finish off the regular season with a win but we need to quickly shift our attention to preparing for Friday."
 
The Eagles maintained a hitting percentage of .186 with 59 kills in the five-set event. The team constructed 92 digs with players in double figures and added eight team blocks, while holding JU to an attack percentage of .159 with 54 kills.
 
Individually, junior Eleonora Kazarian (Tibilisi, Georgia/College of Central Florida) led the team with 23 kills, while Olivia Mesner (Boca Raton, Spanish River High School) added 14 in her final regular season contest. Jessica Barnes (Winter Haven, Fla./Haines City High School) produced 11 in the match as the team's third double-figure producer.
 
Senior setter Gigi Meyer (Gainesville, Fla./Buchholz High School) distributed the ball well for FGCU, with 49 assists. She also led the team with 19 digs, while freshman Courtney Stephens (Winter Park, Fla./Winter Park High School) also had 19.
 
After trading points through the first 20 sequences of the set, the Eagles constructed a four-point run with two kills, a JU error and a service ace from Kazarian to take a 15-10 lead.  FGCU saw kills from Mesner and Moeller to increase the lead to 20-14 and force a Jacksonville timeout.
 
The Dolphins were unable to recover and scored just three more points through the end of the stanza, while FGCU used two JU errors and one final kill from Mesner to take the first set 25-18.
 
The first stanza saw strong attacking from the Eagles as the team produced a hitting percentage of .294 with 13 kills and just three errors.
 
Jacksonville took a quick 3-0 lead to open the second set but the Eagles responded to tie the score at 4-4 and took their first lead of the set on another Kazarian ace. The teams traded volleys again before FGCU put together a 7-1 run that broke open the set.
 
After holding a 17-10 lead, kills from Allen and Mesner helped the Green and Blue create another brief run to push the lead to double-figures at 23-13. Although the dolphins added two more points, FGCU got help from two service errors to bring the score to 25-15 in favor of the Eagles. With the double-digit win, the team took a 2-0 advantage into the break.
 
The teams once again traded points to open the third set but this time saw as the home team took the lead at 9-5 after four-straight points.  The Eagles battled to tie the set at 10 with a kill from Allen and three from Kazarian but the Dolphins quickly responded.  JU scored the next six of seven points to go ahead 19-13 and maintained the lead to 22-16. 
 
Down, 24-17, the Eagles rallied for two points with another Kazarian kill but the team was unable to cut the deficit and fell 25-19 to bring the match to 2-1.
 
The Eagles combatted Jacksonville back-and-forth throughout the fourth set, but a quick run late in the frame doomed FGCU, 25-23, to force a fifth set.
 
The set started with a pair of errors before Sammie Strausbaugh ace ended the string of errant attacking.
 
Kazarian trigged a three-point spurt for FGCU but was quickly negated after a pair of Dolphins' kills sandwiched between a Mesner error gave Jacksonville a 7-5 lead. Both teams traded points before Barnes and Kazarian hammered down a pair of kills amongst a Stephens' ace to put the Eagles ahead one, 10-9.
 
Another flurry of errors on the Eagles' behalf put the Dolphins up 13-11 but Straugsbaugh's following serve landed wide before a Kazarian kill notched it up midway through the fourth, 14-14. Mesner and Barnes matched a pair of kills by Jacksonville to nudge FGCU ahead, 16-15, but Ana Nieto-Gomez's kills sparked a five-of-six point run for JU to put the Dolphins up three, 20-17.
 
After a Dolphins' block to maintain their three-point edge, 22-19, Allen and Kazarian combined for a three-consecutive kills to tie it up late, 22-22. The home team received successful hits from Olga Nushtayeva and Emily LaSkelle to put FGCU on the brink. Mesner's kill brought FGCU to within one, 24-23, but a Kazarian service error forced the final frame.
 
Jacksonville set the tempo with the first two points of the fifth set and never allowed the Eagles to own a lead in the final stanza.
 
Another Mesner kill kept FGCU within a point early on, 3-2, but two more kills from the home team put JU up, 5-3. Nieto-Gomez added another point before Nicole Pritchard's service error. Pritchard's error proved to be the Eagles last point in the next seven volleys as JU rocketed ahead, 13-4, to hold control of the match.
 
While facing a 14-5 deficit, the Eagles rallied for five-straight points with help from three Kazarian kills and two JU errors, but the team could not fight any further and ultimately fell 15-10 in the third set to drop the match 3-2.
 
Despite the loss, the Eagles maintained the second-place standing in the Atlantic Sun Conference standings and will carry that ranking through the A-Sun Championship. The team will face a first-round bye and will take on the winner of no. 3 Northern Kentucky v. no. 6 UNF in Friday's semifinal round.
 
For up-to-the minute information and a behind-the-scenes look at the FGCU volleyball program, follow on Twitter at @FGCU_VB, on Facebook at /FGCUVolleyball and on Instagram at @FGCU_VB.
 
Head coach Matt Botsford is in his first year at the helm of the FGCU volleyball program. Prior to his time in Southwest Florida, Botsford held successful stints as an assistant at Notre Dame, Miami, IUIPI, Indianapolis and most recently Colorado State. Botsford is a former professional volleyball player and is a 1998 graduate of Tri-State University, where he earned a degree in Social Studies Education.  He earned a master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Indianapolis.