Tritons Fall at Florida Southern

LAKELAND, Fla. - The Triton volleyball team suffered its third straight loss on Tuesday night, falling in straight sets to Florida Southern in Lakeland.

The injury-depleted Eckerd squad was plagued by errors, committing a total of 46 in the match.

HOW IT ENDED
Final: Florida Southern 3, Eckerd 0 (10-25, 17-25, 19-25)
Records: Eckerd 4-3 (0-3 SSC); Florida Southern 6-5 (3-0 SSC)
All-Time Series: Florida Southern leads, 62-10

HOW IT HAPPENED
* The Tritons got off to a slow start, committing errors on the first four rallies, but won the next three points to trail 4-3.  After a pair of side-outs, the Mocs took points on nine of 10 rallies building a commanding 14-5 lead.  Eckerd never recovered as FSC closed the set with five consecutive points.
* In the second set, Eckerd took an early 4-2 lead but again found itself on the wrong end of a Florida Southern run.  The Mocs rolled off seven straight points, five as the result of Triton errors, for a 9-4 advantage.  EC broke serve and cut the deficit down to two points following an Arielle Erillo service ace and Kali Boatwright kill.  FSC later pushed its lead back to six before four straight Eckerd points narrowed the score to 18-16.  The Mocs, however, retook control and pulled away by taking seven of the last eight points of the set.
* Eckerd stayed close early in the third set, trailing 9-8 after a kill from Paula Hoffmann, but FSC created some distance with a run of four straight points.  The Mocs maintained a five-point lead until the Tritons roared back with points on five consecutive rallies to tie the set at 15-15.  But once again, Florida Southern elevated its play late in the set winning seven of the next eight points.  From there, the teams traded points until FSC completed the sweep on an Anna Tovo kill.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS
* The Tritons dealt with errors for the entire match, particularly on the attack.  EC committed 33 attack errors and hit -.159 for the match.  Despite the errors, Florida Southern only had eight more kills than did Eckerd (28-20).
* For the third straight match, Hoffmann led both teams in kills.  The sophomore had nine while Boatwright added six.
* Eckerd did outperform FSC at the service line with six aces.  Hoffmann was responsible for four of those.

UP NEXT
The Tritons continue their Sunshine State Conference road swing on Friday with a visit to Nova Southeastern for a 7:00 PM match.