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| USF - Boaz |
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| USF - Luiz |
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UCF - Fisher
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UCF - Vilde
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TAMPA - Despite showing offensive firepower throughout the match, the University of South Florida volleyball team saw its season come to a close with a 3-2 loss to UCF Wednesday night in The Corral.
"What a disappointing way to finish the year," said head coach Claire Lessinger. "We allowed too many strings of points and then couldn't earn them on defense. UCF played great and Vilde, their right side, was unstoppable. We had some amazing individual performances tonight from Boaz and Pam but unfortunately it wasn't enough."
In a back-and-forth match, UCF (12-18 overall) got on the board first with a 26-24 win in the first set. USF (18-10 overall) stormed back to win the second, 25-18, but UCF responded with a 25-21 win in the third set. With their backs against the wall, the Bulls pulled out a 25-23 fourth-set victory, but UCF was too much in the final set, 15-6.
Senior Pamela Luiz and junior Allie Boaz each recorded a match-high 20 kills, while senior Marcela Gurgel chipped in with 16 kills and 15 digs. Junior Mariana Thon contributed a double-double with 35 assists and 12 digs while sophomore Janice Rivera also had 15 digs.
USF hit .331 for the match, slightly above .329 for the Knights. USF also held a slight edge in blocks, 10-9. For UCF, Kristin Fisher was one of five players in double-digit kills, leading the way with 19.
The Bulls went up early, 4-2, to begin play on a kill by Boaz, one of her nine in that first stanza. The Knights responded with a 6-0 run to take the lead right back. USF stayed with UCF throughout the mid-portion of the set and eventually earned a one-point lead at 15-14 from two straight Boaz kills.
UCF called a timeout during a 6-1 run for the Bulls, then promptly went out wiped out the three-point lead by USF, finally taking the lead at 22-21. After a USF timeout there, the Bulls were unable to string together back-to-back points to get ahead, dropping the set, 26-24 on a UCF service ace.
USF again jumped out to the lead in the second set, as the Bulls went up, 7-4, on a Gurgel kill, one of her seven in the set, to force a UCF timeout. The Knights got the USF lead down to just one at 9-8, but an 8-1 run by the Bulls essentially put the set out of reach, with USF up, 17-9. A Luiz service ace got the lead to double digits at 21-11. Although the Knights won five of seven points down the stretch, the Knights were unable to get any closer as USF won, 25-18, on a kill by Luiz.
UCF turned things around in the third set, pushing the lead to four at 8-4 and then to six at 13-7 off a service ace. The Bulls made a late run, scoring six straight points, in between two Knight timeouts, to shrink the lead down to one at 20-19, with redshirt freshman Caitlyn Breen scoring one of her six blocks of the match in the run. UCF ended the set on a kill by Tory McCutcheon, 25-21.
After going down, 3-1, to begin the fourth, the Bulls came right back with a 5-1 run, the last point on a kill by senior Brittany Castelamare, for a 6-4 lead. USF maintained the lead throughout the next part of the set, but the Knights took the lead back at 16-15 on a kill by Fisher.
The teams went back-and-forth from there, but a 3-0 run by the Bulls, with two UCF timeouts in the middle, got USF up by two at 21-19. The teams played tight the last part of the set, but Luiz' seventh kill of the set and a block error by the Knights ended things, 25-23. USF hit .457 in the set.
Although Thon's service ace got things started off right for the Bulls, a 7-0 run by UCF put the Bulls in a hole they were unable to get out of, eventually falling, 15-6. The Knights hit a blistering .643 in the set.
Gurgel ended her USF career second all-time in kills with 1,801 and fourth in aces with 219. She also ranks eighth in digs with 1,079. Senior Alli Arborgast added three blocks in the match to finish fourth in USF's all-time records with 430. With 20 assists in the match, Castelamare cemented her 10th-place all-time showing with 1,642 career helpers. Both Jarka Havlickova and Mollie Echols also saw their USF careers finish Wednesday night.
