MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. – After a season that included its fair share of ups and downs, it was only fitting that Florida Memorial University had to overcome another hurdle Tuesday night.
After falling into a 2-1 hole, the Lions won the fourth and fifth sets to earn a 3-2 win over visiting rival St. Thomas University in the opening round of the Sun Conference Tournament at the FMU Wellness Center.
The comeback victory Tuesday also meant Florida Memorial made program history – earning the women's volleyball team's first-ever trip to the Sun Conference semifinals.
Florida Memorial (20-10) – the No. 4 seed in the conference – will face No. 1 seed and overall tourney host Keiser University on Friday (Nov. 15) in West Palm Beach, Florida. The game is set to begin 90 minutes after the conclusion of the other conference tournament semifinal between Coastal Georgia and Southeastern University, which is set to begin at 2 p.m.
Lions first-year head coach
Marrita Crockett-Moulton and her players spilled onto the court in celebration after the team scored the 15th point of the decisive game five, something that the coach said was a release of a year's worth of emotion.
"It was everything that we went through this season just rushing out of us all at once," Crockett-Moulton said. "We've had so much adversity…and this team prevailed. That whole emotion was just everything coming together. These girls have been through so much these past four years and they finally have some consistency and it's just amazing."
"We're going to the final four," Crockett-Moulton said with a smile.
FMU took the first the first set of the match 25-23, holding off a late rally attempt by the Bobcats (13-14). St. Thomas then took the next two sets 25-19 and 25-17 respectively, as FMU lost its momentum and piled up 17 combined errors in the two sets.
However, it might have been a small run of points by the Lions in the third set prior to the Bobcats securing the 25th point that gave FMU some juice going into a must-win fourth set.
"We had a long game left. And what used to happen, what used to be the old mentality is that they would just give up," Crockett-Moulton said. "We really worked hard on that mentality on that this year. Getting those points at the end of the third set allowed us to get back some of the momentum. I told the girls, 'I'm not giving up on you, so you shouldn't be giving up either."
That momentum from the third set allowed FMU to jump out to a 9-5 lead before stretching the lead out to 17-11 – and as large as 22-15 – and totally taking control of the fourth set. After taking the fourth set 25-17, Florida Memorial scored the first three points of the fifth set, capturing a lead that it would never relinquish. St. Thomas pulled to within one-point twice during the decisive game, but the Lions closed the door on the Bobcats using another three-point spurt to take a 14-9 lead and win the game on an Amanda Allende service error.
As momentous as advancing to the semifinals for the first time in program history is, Coach Crockett-Moulton says her team has its eyes set on a much bigger prize.
"The message is the same…championship mindset," Crockett-Moulton said in unison with assistant coach
Jeffrey Hardman. That's how we win, that's how we've gotten to where we are – just never getting complacent. We expect them to be disciplined but we also expect them to play how they are – their emotional and their passionate and that's the beauty of this team."
