The UNF women’s volleyball team opened their 2009 season Aug. 28 and Aug. 29 with a two win, two loss split at the University of Central Florida Fall Classic.
UNF suffered losses against Big East conference team DePaul University and host University of Central Florida, while UNF’s two victories came against Florida Atlantic University and Bethune-Cookman College.
The Ospreys started the tournament Aug. 28 against Florida Atlantic in a match that went the whole five sets. The first two sets of the match belonged to UNF, but they won both by narrow margins. The third and fourth sets proved to be more difficult, as Florida Atlantic came back to tie the match at two sets a piece. The Ospreys held off a late rally by FAU in the fifth set to go on to win 15-11. Junior middle blocker Kaley Read led the Ospreys in the match with 28 kills.
In the second match of the day, the Ospreys fell in a short three set match against the UCF Knights. The Knights started the match fiercely, making quick work of the first two sets against UNF. After trailing most of the first two sets, eventually dropping them, the Ospreys showed some life in the third set, keeping the score even for some time. But the home team and crowd proved too much for the Ospreys to overcome as UCF pulled away with a 17-25 win.
UCF went on to win the tournament and swept all three teams at the tournament in three straight sets.
The Ospreys played a match against the Blue Devils of DePaul University on Aug. 29. The match went back and forth for five sets. The Ospreys had three players post double-digit kills, freshman outside hitter Paige Pridgeon had 20, Read had 19 and junior outside hitter Nallelis Sanfeliz scored 13. Junior setter Jessica Catelano also had a strong performance with 49 assists in the match. The great stats were not enough to win the match for the Ospreys, however, as they fell in the final set to the Blue Devils 8-15.
“We could have been more consistent,” UNF Head Coach Kevin Campbell said when asked about the match against Depaul. “It was close the whole time, but we needed to play more aggressive consistently.”
The Ospreys ended the weekend with a win against BCC in three straight sets. Junior outside hitter Danielle Lerch contributed 12 kills in the match, as the Ospreys swooped pass the Wildcats with sets of 25-11, 25-18 and 25-21 to earn their second victory of the weekend.
“The point of this weekend was to build offense, build defense and come together as a team,” Campbell said. “Overall, this weekend, we took great steps in our team development, and we had the opportunity to see just about everyone on our team play.”
The Ospreys will now take on Tennessee Tech and Appalachian State at the Appalachian State Invitational Sept. 2 – Sept. 5.
