ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.- The #12 Florida SouthWestern State Buccaneers were clicking on all cylinders Tuesday night in St. Petersburg, shattering a program record with a .560 hitting percentage as a team in a 3-0 sweep of their 2021 Suncoast Conference opener against St. Petersburg.
It was evident early and often that this was going to be the Bucs night. Fiona Baker connected with Katie Dickey on the first play of the game for a kill and found Kellen Valentim twice in the next few moments to give the Bucs an early 5-2 advantage. They pushed that lead to 12-6 later on after back to back kills from Julia De Sa and took an eight point lead at 19-11 when Yasso Amin hammered one to the floor late in the set. The Bucs didn't let up, finishing the Titans off with a rocket off the hand of Amin for an ace to seal the set 25-13 and give FSW a 1-0 lead in the match. The Bucs finished off 19 kills in the first set, hitting .586 as a team while siding out at an eye popping 84% in the period.
It was more of the same in the second as FSW again jumped out to a big early lead, this time 6-1 on kills from four different players. For the second straight set, they led 12-6 at the midway point and blew it open to 20-9 when Baker found a red hot Amin in the middle for a kill to give the Bucs an 11 point lead. St. Pete showed some fight, making it an eight point game late in the set, but a pair of kills from De Sa closed them out 25-16 and gave the Bucs a commanding 2-0 lead in the match. The Bucs offense was unstoppable in the set, hitting .737 as a team with 15 kills and a single error in 19 swings.
The third was more tightly contested early on as after 14 points the two teams were knotted at 7. A 3-0 run from the Bucs pushed them ahead 10-7 before a St. Pete timeout and they never looked back from there. The Bucs scored the next three out of the timeout to make it 13-7 and eventually stretched their lead all the way to 19-9 when Baker and Amin hooked up for the 14th time on the night. Valentim went over the block later on to give the Bucs match point and they finished it off right away on a blast from Amin to give them the third 25-15 and the match 3-0.
The Bucs finished the match hitting .560 as a team, shattering the previous program record by over 100 points. Baker quarterbacked the Bucs offense as well as Tom Brady did his Bucs attack two days ago, dishing out 41 assists, her most in a three set match this season. Amin led a host of Bucs attackers who had big days, going for 15 kills on just 20 swings while also picking up four blocks in the match. De Sa backed up her FCSAA Player of the Week performance Friday with an equally as impressive showing Tuesday, finishing off 11 kills without a single error in 23 chances. Valentim hit .692 in the match, hammering down nine kills on just 13 attacks while Dickey had seven kills on 12 swings and Kianie Cummings went a perfect four for four in the contest and also had four blocks.
The Bucs improve to 7-2 on the season with the win and win their Suncoast Conference opener for the first time in their young history.
FSW will be back in action in a big Suncoast Conference match on Thursday night at home in Suncoast Credit Union Arena when they host #9 Polk State in a 6:00 PM first serve.