Brooks Gymnasium buzzed with nervousness Friday night as the Lady Buccaneers’ volleyball team took on Florida Gulf Coast University at 7 p.m. Since the Eagles are ranked first in the A-Sun standings, the Bucs knew this was going to be a tough match.
In the first game the Lady Bucs lost 15 to 25. FGCU outnumbered ETSU in kills 17 to 11; it was evident that the Buccaneers had to come back in the second set stronger.
Right away the team came strong with a huge block from freshman middle blocker McKayla Barber and freshman setter Amanda Youell. The libero, freshman Jen Neice played a tough match and was not afraid of the hard kills FGCU dished out. She had a quick dig, and then a kill by Barber to stay in the game.
After the loss of a long volley, head coach Lindsey Divine called for a substitution.Junior middle Kristan Provchy came in for freshman middle Mallory Kiley. After a few catch-up points, the Florida middle hit over the block to win the second game 25-21.
The third match started with defensive specialist Dani Howe, sophomore Whitney Cogburn, Neice in the libero position, Youell as the setter, Barber in the middle and sophomore, outside hitter Erin Ryan.
In this match, serving errors hurt the Bucs. They ended with 10 errors compared to Florida’s 7.
The referee called a double touch, which means the ball was illegally contacted more than once by a player. The crowd booed and voiced their disagreement, and Divine came to her feet in protest.
This match also had many highlights. Youell and Barber had a block that went back in the FGCU hitters face, making the crowd go wild.
Barber had a kill to tie at 9 to 9. A dump by Youell made the score 11-10 and the only time in the match that the Bucs remained ahead. The outside hitter of the Eagles had an excellent game with a .440 hitting percentage and 16 kills.
This hurt the Bucs, and after a few timeouts Divine substituted Jamie Sandcliff in for Erin Ryan.
At 22-18, Divine called another timeout, but the Lady Bucs finally fell to the FGCU Eagles 25-21.
Kelly Corker, a freshman from South Bend, Ind., said, “It’s frustrating because it’s a hard loss, we all worked really hard at practice this week.” Both teams ended with a total of 6.0 blocks. Ryan ended with 10 kills and Cogburn with 8, a total of 35 at the end of three sets.
The volleyball team will play Western Carolina Tuesday at 7 p.m. in Brooks Gym.

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