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Eagles fall to #13 FIU on the road

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(EN Photo / Brad Young)

In a tight head-to-head battle with FIU, the FGCU Volleyball team fell just short in a 3-2 on Wednesday versus the 13th best team in the country.
The two wins from the Eagles came from pairs Katherine Puisis and Karina Rhoades as well as Kaitlan Krivdo and Alayna Ryan.
“I was really pleased with all five pairings, Head Coach Matt Botsford said. “The big thing for us that we talk about a lot is putting ourselves in position to win, and every one of those pairings, we did exactly that. There was a level of aggression towards the end of sets that I think we haven’t necessarily had in some of the other matches we’ve played, and I think that served us really well tonight. I think we have to continue to play that way.”
FGCU took a 1-0 lead after Krivdo and Ryan won their match in straight sets that both went beyond 21 points. They took the first set 22-20 and the second one 23-21.
Snowy Burnam and Kayla Whetstone came in as the Eagles hottest pair of late a week after being named ASUN Player of the Week, but fell in three sets 21-10, 16-21, 9-15.
The two teams traded the next two matches as well as Mackenzie Allen and Amanda Carroll dropped their match, but Puisis and Rhoades came back after dropping the second set for a 21-17, 12-21,15-8 win moving up from the number three pair to number two.
The pair they switched with was the final match to finish, but did not end well for FGCU as Giovanna Borgiotti and Ashley Glickert lost their second straight match this time by a score of 16-21, 21-19, 15-10 to move the Eagles record to 4-3 on the season.
“Gio and Ashley looked great,” Botsford said.They lost a heartbreaker in the third set but you saw them turn a corner collectively, and that’s going to bode well for us moving forward.”
The exhibition match of Cortney VanLiew and Kellie Pernula did not finish with both teams taking a set 21-17.
FGCU will be back in action this weekend when the Eagles will be seeing challenging programs such as TCU, South Carolina, UNC Wilmington and Hawaii. Both South Carolina and Hawaii come in with top ten rankings.

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