Box Score ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Any time a team is coming off a big win, there is often the possibility of an emotional letdown the next day.
After upsetting No. 6 Florida Southern last night, the Eckerd College volleyball team suffered no such setback as the Tritons rolled past Florida Tech in four sets (25-22, 21-25, 25-20, 25-16) in the McArthur Center on Saturday afternoon.
"That's something we talked about after the game last night," said EC head coach
Michelle Piantadosi. "We weren't as sharp as we were yesterday but the mental toughness was there."
That toughness was tested early as the Panthers jumped out to an 8-2 lead in the first set, aided by five Triton attack errors.
Eckerd (7-6, 2-3) quickly turned things around to pull back within a point, and later used a run of seven straight points behind the service of
Arielle Erillo to go ahead 19-15. But Florida Tech (7-5, 2-3) responded with six consecutive points of its own to retake the lead at 22-21.
Once again, the Tritons exhibited their mental edge and closed out the set with the final four points on kills from
Katie Arnette and
Lauryn Nelson.
Tjasa Kotnik put together a streak of five straight aces early in set two as EC built a 9-4 lead, but FIT rallied to tie the set at 14-14 and continued to ride the momentum to their only set win of the match.
Eckerd took control early in the third set, never trailing after a
JaQuayla Baker kill put EC on top, 3-2. The Tritons led by as many as six points and never by fewer than three for most of the set, closing it out on a powerful Baker kill to go ahead two sets to one.
The momentum carried over into the fourth set where Eckerd bolted out to a 7-2 lead. The Panthers would get no closer than three points the rest of the way, and the Tritons finished off the match by taking the final four points to score the victory.
Piantadosi was pleased by the way her team didn't let up after taking a 2-1 lead following set three.
"I really loved how we finished the fourth set," she said. "We made a decision that we were going to take care of business and we played really well."
The Eckerd attack was perhaps as balanced as it has been all season with three players reaching double-digits in kills. Kotnik led the way with 16 while Baker had 15 and Arnette added 14. Nelson barely missed making it a quartet, finishing the day with nine kills. EC hit .308 as a team, its third-highest attacking percentage of the season.
While the team relied heavily upon Kotnik earlier in the season, the Tritons have been able to effectively balance out the attack in recent matches and the results have spoken for themselves.
"It makes us so much more versatile and harder to defend," Piantadosi said. "We've had big performances out of all of our hitters lately."
The Tritons' service also created problems for the Panthers as EC totaled a season-high 13 aces, including six from Kotnik.
Eckerd returns to action next weekend in the McArthur Center hosting Lynn University on Friday at 7:00 PM and Nova Southeastern on Saturday at 4:00 PM.
