November 4, 2022
Bucs Blast Titans, Advance to State Championship Showdown
A season ago, the Florida SouthWestern State Buccaneers were stunned in the semifinals of the FCSAA State Tournament with a 3-2 loss to Polk State to end their dreams of the program's first State Championship. Friday, in the same position one year later in Melbourne, the Bucs weren't going to let that happen again as they jumped on the #17 Eastern Florida State Titans early and never relented, hammering the Cinderella Titans 3-0 on Eastern's home floor to advance to their second FCSAA State Championship Game in the past three seasons.
MELBOURNE, Fla.- A season ago, the Florida SouthWestern State Buccaneers were stunned in the semifinals of the FCSAA State Tournament with a 3-2 loss to Polk State to end their dreams of the program's first State Championship. Friday, in the same position one year later in Melbourne, the Bucs weren't going to let that happen again as they jumped on the #17 Eastern Florida State Titans early and never relented, hammering the Cinderella Titans 3-0 on Eastern's home floor to advance to their second FCSAA State Championship Game in the past three seasons.
The first set was close early on until FSW's Barbara Koehler stepped to the service line and ran off seven points in a row including three aces to put the Bucs out in front 18-7. The Bucs continued to push, getting a kill out of the middle from Julia Lawrenz to make it 23-11 and a shot off an overpass from Victoria Zibecchi gave FSW the first 25-13 to put the Bucs up 1-0 in the match.
With Koehler at the service line again early in the second, the Bucs rolled off four in a row with two more aces off the right hand of the FSW superstar to stake them out to a 5-0 lead to begin the period. A big block from Lawrenz and Alondra Alarcon stretched the lead to 8-1 and by the midway point of the period it was all FSW once again as the Bucs led it 15-5. Back to back blocks from Izzy Collier made it 19-8 later on and two straight hitting errors from the Titans sealed their fate in the second as the Bucs took the set 25-13 to go up 2-0 in the match.
Just when the Titans thought it couldn't get any worse for them on their home floor, the Bucs made just that happen. FSW scored the first five points of the third as Koehler and Maria Cecilia hammered from all angles for four straight kills to put the Bucs up 5-0 and a 10-0 run midway through the set ballooned the score to 18-4. It was all semantics from there as two more Koehler aces finished off the set with the score 25-9 as FSW completed the 3-0 sweep to advance to the title game.
The contrast in statistical numbers were just about what you would expect in as lopsided of match as it was as FSW hit .400 as a team in the win while Eastern Florida hit -.012. Koehler led FSW with 9 kills and 7 aces to tie the program single game record while Lawrenz and Cecilia combined for 15 kills on 24 swings without a single error. Arianna Rossi pulled up 12 digs to lead the Bucs backline while seven different FSW players combined on 9 blocks in the victory, led by Collier who had 2 solos and was in on 4 other assisted stuffs.
FSW moves to 22-1 on the season with the win while Eastern Florida falls to 18-8.
The Bucs advance to their second FCSAA State Tournament Championship Game in the past three seasons on Saturday where they will square off with rival Miami Dade at 3:00 in Melbourne with a trip to the NJCAA National Tournament on the line.