{"id":26110,"date":"2013-09-09T22:39:54","date_gmt":"2013-09-10T02:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=26110"},"modified":"2013-09-09T22:39:54","modified_gmt":"2013-09-10T02:39:54","slug":"fgcu_vb-starts-home-play-hosting-usf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2013\/09\/fgcu_vb-starts-home-play-hosting-usf\/","title":{"rendered":"@FGCU_VB Starts Home Play Hosting USF"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>\"\"After beginning the 2013 season with six matches away from home, the FGCU volleyball team returns to The Nest for its home opener welcoming in-state rival USF to Alico Arena on Tuesday at 7 p.m.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Eagles enter the matchup with a 1-5 overall record after collecting their first win of the season Sunday against Florida A&M, while the Bulls arrive to Alico sitting at 3-4 looking to snap a three-game losing streak. \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

After the second week of play, three FGCU players rank amongst the top 10 in the Atlantic Sun as individual category leaders. Junior <\/strong>Jessica Barnes (Winter Haven, Fla.\/Haines City HS)<\/strong> leads the A-Sun in service aces per set, totaling seven over a mere 14 sets for a .50 average. Barnes also ranks 10th overall for kills registering 42, as senior <\/strong>Kaitlin Holm (Fort Myers, Fla.\/Fort Myers HS\/Marshall)<\/strong> stands at eighth with 60. Finishing out the FGCU leader board is junior <\/strong>Gigi Meyer (Gainesville, Fla.\/Buchholz HS)<\/strong> ranking sixth for assists per set with a 9.74 average and a total of 185.<\/strong><\/p>\n

SCOUTING THE BULLS<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Bulls enter Tuesday\u2019s contest after dropping all three of their matches (3-0, 3-0, 3-1) at the Bluejay Invitational in Omaha, Neb. last weekend. In the Bulls\u2019 last match against Northern Colorado, defensive team leaders Erin Fairs and Natalia Sores registered career highs. Fairs notched a career-best 25 digs as she cruised to her sixth double-double of the season, adding a team-high 16 kills. Soares posted her second double-double of the year, digging a career-high 19 balls and contributing 27 assists in the loss.<\/strong><\/p>\n

SERIES HISTORY <\/strong><\/p>\n

The Bulls and Eagles have met five times prior to Tuesday night\u2019s match, with the Eagles leading the series 3-2. In their last meeting, the Green and Blue fell 3-1 (14-25, 21-25, 25-17, 16-25) to the Bulls in Tampa, after sweeping them (25-22, 25-23, 25-19) and (28-26, 25-16, 25-18) in 2011 and 2010, respectively.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In last season\u2019s matchup,\u00a0<\/strong>Karina Mambuca (Naples, Fla.\/Gulf Coast HS\/Southeastern)<\/strong> led the Eagles with a team-high eight kills to go with five digs.\u00a0<\/strong>Jill Hopper (Muncie, Ind.\/Yorktown HS)<\/strong>\u00a0registered seven kills and a team-high 13 digs, while Holm\u00a0finished with seven kills, three digs and a block. The setting duo of Meyer and <\/strong>Courtney Greenberg (Fort Myers, Fla.\/Fort Myers HS\/Juniata College)<\/strong>\u00a0finished with a combined 32 assists and 14 digs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

FGCU continues home play throughout the weekend as the Eagles host the 2013 Hilton Garden Inn\/Homewood Suites Airport Classic Sept. 13-14. The Eagles face Central Arkansas Friday at 10 a.m. and Marquette at 7 p.m. before hosting No. 1 Penn State Saturday at 7 p.m. in the \u201cBig Ten Faceoff.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After beginning the 2013 season with six matches away from home, the FGCU volleyball team returns to The Nest for its home opener welcoming in-state rival USF to Alico Arena… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26110"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}