TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – The No. 2-ranked Florida State sand volleyball team kicks off the 2015 season this Saturday at 12 p.m. ET when it holds the annual Garnet and Gold match at the Sand Volleyball Complex.
Florida State, which placed runner-up at the 2014 AVCA Collegiate Sand Volleyball National Championships, returns 13 players from last season’s team that finished with an overall record of 19-3.
“I’m thrilled to get them going,” fourth-year head coach Danalee Corso said. “Our team looks really, really strong. We still are mixing it up every single day with partnerships.
“I’m really looking for people to kind of step up in the chemistry department as far as partnerships. Most of the team will have just been thrown together the day before. I want to see how they compete with the whistle and in the (competitive) environment, and to get their nerves out because it’s the beginning of the season.”
Over 10 matches are scheduled to be played at the event which will feature several of the Seminoles’ standouts, including senior All-Americans Jace Pardon and Sarah Wickstrom as well as their classmates Stephanie Pellitteri and Melanie Pavels, and fifth-year senior transfer Taylor Nyquist.
Nyquist starred on Jacksonville University’s sand volleyball team for three years and competed at back-to-back AVCA National Championships before transferring to FSU this fall.
Saturday’s match will be her first competition at the FSU Sand Volleyball Complex as a Seminoles, and it’s something she has been looking forward to since arriving on campus months ago.
“I’m really excited,” Nyquist said. “Being able to be part of this team has been such a great experience already, and to kick off our first spring event, it’s really exciting. We’ve been training for a couple months now, so to finally see it all come together is exciting. Working towards a national championship is our main goal.”
The Seminoles were just two points away from capturing the national title last spring and that finish has motivated the team, especially the seniors, to get back to the finals again in what will be the final year of the current AVCA format before the NCAA takes over in 2016.
“This weekend we’ve been looking forward to for a while now,” Pavels said. “It is our first true competition to kick start our season. Even though it’s against ourselves, it’s the starting point for where our season is going to go. So we’re all really ready to show what we’ve been working on for so long.”
*FSU Sports Information
