Monday, November 14, 2005

Belmont Bruins

The Bruins swept Tennessee Tech on Tuesday to give them their second consecutive 20-win season. Jaye Schuler hit .429 in the match, collecting 12 kills and a block. Ashley Collier had 22 digs in the three games. The Bruins finished the season with a 20-14 record, and their 6-3 conference mark to earn the third seed in the Atlantic Sun Championship this week. The Bruins will face the ETSU Lady Bucs in the first round on Friday and the winner will play Jacksonville that evening.

East Tennesee State Bucaneers

The Lady Bucs got back on the winning track last week, downing Western Carolina, 3-0, on Tuesday, Nov. 8. The win was the first on the road in over a month, and snapped a three-game losing skid. Jennifer Sartor led the way with 15 kills, while hitting .467 for the night. Sarah Buhr was tough on defense, tallying a team-best 14 digs. Sixth-seeded ETSU draws Belmont, the third seed and host team, in this weekend's A-Sun Championships. The Bruins topped the Lady Bucs, 3-0, in the teams' Oct. 22 meeting.

Florida Atlantic Owls

FAU (27-2, 9-0 A-Sun) closed out the regular season with a win over UCF and finished the season with 11 straight wins. Casey LaRocca broke the FAU single season assists record with 44 assists in the win to raise her stat to 1259 assists for the season. Kelly Paiva added 20 kills and a .486 hitting percentage. FAU enters the A-Sun Tournament this Friday as the No. 1 seed in Nashville, Tenn.

Jacksonville Dolphins

JU’s 8-1 mark in the A-Sun is the school’s best record ever in conference play and second place finish is also the best-ever since joining the A-Sun…Lindsay Ward picked up 22 kills in JU’s 3-2 win over Stetson for the first 20+ kill match of the year for the Dolphins…JU has matched last season’s late surge. Last year, JU started 0-7 and finished 15-14 and went to the NCAA Tournament. This year, the Dolphins started 1-9 and finished the regular season with a 15-13 record.

Mercer Bears

Securing the No. 5 seed in A-Sun tournament, the Bears concluded their regular season with victories over Gardner-Webb and Campbell. Mercer volleyball celebrated senior day by honoring Jackie Viren before the Campbell match and she returned the favor leading the Bears to a 3-0 win over the Camels in the University Center on Saturday. Mercer will take on No. 4 seed Lipscomb Nov. 18 in the tournament.

UNF Ospreys

UNF finished 3-0 last week with a road win over UCF and home wins over 25th-ranked Florida Gulf Coast and Stetson. UNF can clinch its eighth-consecutive 20-win season with a victory in its season finale at South Florida on Wednesday. The Lady Ospreys have won 16 of their last 19 matches since a 3-6 start to open the year, with two of those losses coming to A-Sun champion Florida Atlantic. The team honored outgoing seniors Kelly Kazmierczak and Sally Nobles in a pregame ceremony before Saturday’s match with Stetson.

Stetson Hatters

Stetson won five in a row at home to close the season, the team’s longest such streak since 1987. Senior DeeAnn Dempsey reached the 1000-dig milestone in her final match Saturday at UNF. She becomes the seventh player in school history with 1000 career digs and the fourth player with over 1000 career kills and over 1000 career digs.