Women's volleyball team falls in five sets to No. 19 Daytona State

The Eastern Florida State College women's volleyball battled No. 19 Daytona State College to five sets Tuesday night at Titan Field House on the Melbourne campus.

The Titans won the first two sets 25-22, 25-22 before falling 25-16, 25-21 and 15-7 to fall to 2-7 in the Suncoast Conference. The match was shown live on WEFS-TV.

The two teams traded points early in the first set and Daytona State took an 18-15 lead before the Titans took the lead behind solid serving from Janleen De Jesus and Desiree Cruz finishing gave the Titans a 19-18 lead. The Titans would finish strong to take the first set. Cruz had seven kills in the first set to lead the Titans to the 25-22 win.

The second set would see the Titans take an early 12-7 lead as Cruz has a couple more kills to spur the run. The Titans would continue to lead throughout the second set as they made huge digs and Giselle Giraud and Cruz continued to finish points as the Titans would score the final two points to win the second, 25-22.

Down 2-0 in the match, Daytona State College went down early in the third set and was down 14-11 at one point but bounced back and went on a run to take 19-14 lead and went on to post the 25-16 win to force a fourth set.

Daytona State started to take control as they held the lead for most of the fourth set as both teams battled for every point, but the Falcons were able to tie the match 25-21.

The fifth set was all Falcons as they jumped out early and improved to 7-2 in the conference with the win.

Cruz finished with a career-high 19 kills while Giraud had 17 kills and 15 digs in the match. Yuleidy Torres led the team with 29 digs and De Jesus finished with 50 assists and 16 digs.

Eastern Florida State College will host Monroe College, who is receiving votes in the latest NJCAA Division I poll, in a non-conference match Friday night at 6 p.m.