LEE COUNTY, Fla. — Florida Southwestern volleyball continues to make history! Last season, the Bucs won their first national title and this weekend, they became back-to-back national champs.
“It feels amazing,” said FSW freshman middle blocker Nina Boledovicova. “It’s what we’ve worked towards the whole season and we were able to achieve it in such a great way.”
The Buccaneers were facing their biggest rivals — Miami-Dade College. These two teams have some history. FSW beat Miami-Dade in last year’s title game, and this year, the Sharks bit back, handing the Bucs their one and only loss of the season.
“The championship was just like, they’re familiar,” said FSW head coach Thais Baziquetto-Allen. “We know what they’re going to do. We know what we need to do to beat them. So we just need to go out there and play our match.”
After dropping the first set in Saturday’s NJCAA National Championship game, FSW sparked a comeback to win the next three sets and clinch that final victory, 3-1, and finish the season with a 33-1 record.
“Everybody’s like, what did you say in the huddle? What happened in the huddle?” Baziquetto-Allen said. “But the players really took command of that huddle. I said with my assistant and we talked a little bit about lineups and changes and things like that. And I could hear them saying like we’re just nervous. Now let’s just go play a game, let’s enjoy this moment, be happy, we know what we need to do. We know the talent that we have, we just need to go out there and play our game so it was really them turning around and resetting their mindset.”
The moment that final point was scored, it all sank in.
“I [didn’t] understand anything,” said FSW freshman libero Anna Marzella. “I’m so excited. I call[ed] my parents, I just want to go home and show [them] everything. I just want to live this moment with my teammates and stay all together.”
“We worked so hard all season,” Boledovicova said. “All the practices were going towards that game, towards that last point and when we finally scored it, it was great.”
Between volleyball and softball, FSW has now racked up five national titles in less than three years.
“I think it just shows the strength of FSW athletics and the support that FSW put into athletics,” Baziquetto-Allen said. “There’s a little bit of a joke going on you know, now [Coach Robert Iamurri] has to win now in the spring so that we have a six-peat between him and I. But I think it just shows the support that we have from athletics from our athletic director, George Sanders, from our SID Roy Allen. He does a fantastic job. If you listen to the broadcasts, all the information that they added from FSW, and all our stats is all thanks to him. Andre Bealykov, our athletic trainer, he keeps them healthy, he keeps them going in strength conditioning, things like that. It’s just the support that we have from everybody. My assistant coach Luis coming in this year and just kind of picking up with the expectations that we had and really pushing the team and everybody really that’s been around. It’s just incredible support that allows us to do the job that we want to do.”
“It’s amazing what coach Thais has done in just such a short time,” Boledovicova said. “The program doesn’t have a long history and she just brings together such a great group of people to work towards this goal. And we made it for the second year in a row. It’s really amazing, it felt amazing coming in as a freshman to an environment with such high standards and it’s amazing.”
Now that both the sophomore and freshman classes have “national champs” on their resume, the push for another has just begun.
“The [sophomores] won two times back-to-back and I hope that the next year we’re going to do the same,” Marzella said. “I’m sad because we are done but I am prepared for the next year.”
FSW volleyball will celebrate with their trophy at halftime during the FSW men’s basketball game on Tuesday, November 21.