The Lady Owls volleyball team started off Troy St. homecoming Saturday, Oct. 26, with a bang.
Coming into the match FAU was 12-12 on the season and 7-2 in conference play, putting them in third place overall in the Atlantic Sun Conference.
Troy St. was getting ready to put a strangle hold on second place and then watch their football team take on the Owls at Memorial Stadium across campus.
The problem for Troy St. was that the Lady Owls had a different plan.
FAU stormed out to a 1-0 lead on the serve of Danyielle Smith. Smith had three aces in this first game while Iana Andonova had 6 kills for the Lady Owls en route to a 30-21 win.
Troy St. (16-8,6-2) came back in the second and third games to take a 2-1 lead in the match with wins of 30-24 and 32-30. Needing only one more win to defeat the Owls, it seemed as though Troy St. had taken control.
FAU had to turn things around in a hurry and they did.
Facing elimination in the fourth game the Lady Owls played their best game of the day. In dominant fashion, FAU beat Troy St. 30-19 forcing a fifth and deciding game.
Tied at two games apiece, FAU jumped out to an early lead in the final game but let their lead slip away and found themselves trailing 7-4. With the fifth game being only to 15 FAU needed to turn this game around quick.
A service error by the Troy St. feature player Haven Triboulet got the ball rolling for FAU.
Jeana Boyle took over the serve for FAU and didn’t yield it until FAU was back on top 9-7. Aided by two more errors by Troy St., Boyle added another FAU service ace en route to this lead.
The two teams traded points until finally tying the match at fourteen.
Needing to win by two Andonova helped the cause with her team leading 18 kill of the game to win the serve back.
Off the serve of Andonova, Boyle served up her 56th assist of the game to Giovana Milaneze for the kill and the win.
Boyle lead FAU in hitting percentage with .455 while WOWL announcers deemed Smith the “Trojan killer” with her career high seven aces against Troy St.
With the win FAU took over second place in the conference with one conference game remaining against Jacksonville Nov. 1. After Jacksonville, FAU kicks off the Owls homecoming with a rivalry match against FIU on Nov. 5. Then they play Stetson before heading to the Atlantic Sun tournament in Orlando.
Winning this match at Troy St. on their raining homecoming day dampened what could have been a sweep in Alabama over FAU teams.
