Western Kentucky snaps FIU win streak at seven

By: Eduardo Almaguer / Staff Writer

Head Coach Danijela Tomic had repeated over and over that their seven-game win streak was not important. She believed it only served one purpose.

“It sets us up for disappointment,” said Tomic earlier in the week.

The disappointment struck Friday night as the Panthers were dominantly swept on their home court (25-17, 25-22, 25-19) by Western Kentucky (16-1, 3-0 SBC). The Panthers first loss in almost a month snapped their season-high seven-game win streak. WKU extended theirs to 13 games.

It was a night where all the bad breaks seemed to land on the Panther’s side of the net and where small mistakes piled up and collapsed on top of them. Junior Jovana Bjelica was the only Panther to reach double-digit kills with 12 as the offense could not get any momentum going.

FIU (10-4, 2-1 SBC) had a paltry .134 hitting percentage, their third-lowest mark of the season. Even though setter Renele Forde led the team with 16 assists, she abruptly left the game after half time, benched by Tomic.

“She needed to use more hitters. We didn’t use Una’s [Trkulja] ability,” said Tomic. “I wasn’t happy with her decision making.”

The Lady Toppers jumped out to a 5-4 lead on sophomore Una Trkulja’s error to open the first set. WKU held on to the lead with a tight grip. The Panthers committed seven errors in the opening set amd the majority of them came at crucial moments of the game where they had just scored a point, freezing any spark that could get the team going.

On the heels of a 10-3 run, WKU extended their lead to 22-13.  Fittingly enough, an error by middle blocker Andrea Lakovic ended the set and gave the win to the Lady Toppers.

As the second set opened, FIU was able to maintain an extremely slim lead over WKU for almost the entire set. After taking an 11-10 lead on a WKU error, the Panthers slapped down any momentum the opposition had.

Two errors and a kill later, however, the game was all tied up. FIU had lost the lead they painstakingly tried to hold. WKU, the number one team in the conference, stormed back and showed why they were ranked 29^th in the country. After two more errors, FIU had surrendered the lead and left the door wide open for WKU to take the set. After a kill by junior Lindsay Williams, the Lady Toppers were up 2-0.

Communication, or the lack thereof, was fatal to the team and was a big cause of their downward spiral. After a ball landed between three Panthers, an all too common occurrence in Friday’s game, they would stare at each other with blank faces, wondering who was supposed to get that ball.

“No one did their job. We knew what we were supposed to do and we didn’t do it,” said Bjelica.

“They linger too much on mistakes. They want think about what happens one, two or three points ago,” added a disappointed Tomic after the game. “Mistakes are going to be made. Just move on.”

When the third set began, energy on the Panther side of the net hit rock bottom. An early 7-12 deficit not only crushed the team’s resolve, but also the “F-I-U” chants the crowd started to try and will the team to some momentum. The Panthers quickly dropped the final set, 25-19, never able to close the gap.

“I don’t feel that our team gave 100 percent effort. That’s the biggest thing that hurts,” said Tomic. “It was one of those nights where not many things went right.”