Volleyball team opens with thrilling five-set win

The Eastern Florida State College women's volleyball team opened the regular season with a thrilling five set victory over No. 5 Trinity Valley Friday at the FSW Battle at the Beach Tournament in Fort Myers.

The No. 19 ranked Titans came back to post the victory 21-25, 25-18, 27-25, 22-25, 17-15.

The first set was tied 19-19 when Trinity Valley went on a 4-0 run and went on to take the first set.

But the Titans played better in the second set, leading for almost the entire set as Sophia Iglesias had back-to-back aces in the set and big kills from Libby Ashline and Riley Buddie kept the Titans on top.

Tied 1-1, the third set was a battle as the two teams traded points early on. Trinity Valley went on a run, scoring six straight points to take a 22-14 lead. But a Jordan kill sent Mariana Bueno Lopes to the service line. The sophomore had three straight aces to get Eastern Florida State College back into the mix. From there they would tie things up 24-24. Tied 25-25, Lesmary Raffucci had two big kills and the Titans had the 2-1 advantage.

Trinity Valley would force a fifth set with a 25-22 win in the fourth and it looked as if the Titans would fall short in the fifth but down 14-11, once again they found a way. Eastern Florida State College would score three straight points to tie it 14-14 and then won it on a Jordan kill.

Raffucci led the Titans with 16 kills and 24 digs while Jordan finished with 13 kills and 15 digs. Sophia Iglesias had 31 setter assists and Ashline had five blocks to go with four kills.

Eastern Florida State College will play No. 11 Utah State-Eastern at 3 p.m. today. You can watch the match live here.