By: Alejandro Aguirre/Contributing Writer
It was a rough weekend for the volleyball team as they lost all three matches this past weekend in South Dakota at the SDSU Challenge. It was a crushing blow to the Panthers, putting their overall record at 3-7.
The Panthers’ opponents over the weekend were North Dakota, South Dakota State and Iowa. What makes this weekend hurt a little more is that South Dakota State, the host of the tournament, had a losing record and FIU couldn’t capitalize on that opportunity. It was a weekend the Panthers would like to forget about and have their mindset on winning the upcoming games.
Their opening match was against North Dakota but FIU lost three sets to one. UND was a tough opponent as they entered the tournament with a record of 6-3. It seemed as if every set played in this match was an uphill climb for the Panthers and were only able to barely take the second set 25-21. The main issue for the team was not being able to contain UND from scoring bursts to start off each set.
This automatically put the team in a tough hole to climb out of. What made it more difficult to beat UND was their defense, which held the Panthers to an average of 13 points in the three sets they lost. Some positive things to take from the match was junior Adriana Mc Lamb, who led the team in the backcourt with 12 digs and sophomore setter Anabela Sataric had a team high in assists with 27.
In their second match, the Panthers went up against South Dakota State and FIU seemed to polish up their game a bit even though they lost the match three sets to two. This match was a rough match to lose for the team as South Dakota came into this tournament stumbling a bit and had a losing record.
On the bright side, co-captain junior Lucia Castro had a career best and match-high 27 kills with also a career best .533 hitting percentage.
There was some FIU history made in that match as well. Anabela Sataric made her mark in Panthers Volleyball history with a career high 62 assists and is now ranked seventh in FIU’s single- match record books.
The Panthers experienced the same speedy game style when they played against North Dakota. South Dakota was able to take advantage of early errors made by FIU and easily took large leads in the first two sets. In the third and fourth sets, FIU looked like a totally different team as they cleaned up their offensive game and never trailed in either set. In the fifth and tie breaking set, the Panthers and Jackrabbits were in a back and forth battle the whole time. When FIU was up 12- 10, SDSU went on a 3-0 run to have a one point lead. What put the nail in the coffin for FIU was a late attack error that SDSU capitalized on and eventually won the final set 15-13 which led to the Panthers losing that match.
The Panthers closed out the tournament with a match against Iowa. The Hawkeyes were their toughest opponent out of three as they had a record of 7-2 and won the match three sets to one. Lucia Castro led the team with 11 kills and 18 digs. This was her second consecutive and fourth double- double of the season. Freshman Jennifer Ene contributed on the defensive side with a career- high eight total blocks. The Hawkeyes had control of the whole match as they had scoring bursts that the Panthers couldn’t defend. Even with all the offensive firepower Iowa had, FIU had the lead in the first set but Iowa didn’t go down quietly as they overcame the deficit and won that set.
That seemed to set the tone for the match. FIU was only able to salvage up a win in the second set but not by much. After that, the Panthers went back to their bad habits as they made silly errors that could have been avoided. Iowa took advantage of the mistakes and won the third and fourth set. This doesn’t mean the Hawkeyes blew right through the Panthers, on the contrary, FIU had the lead for the last two sets but the errors mentioned before was the difference maker and helped Iowa capture the lead, win the sets, and in the end win the match.
The Panthers will need to shake off this tournament and put it in the past. That’s what great teams do, they move on and learn from their mistakes so they can convert those losses to wins.
Now the team just needs to put their focus on Wednesday’s home opener against in- state rival Florida Atlantic University at 6 p.m.
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