On Saturday FIT traveled to Kingsborough CC for a double dual versus Kingsborough Community College and number one ranked Regional opponent Queensborough Community College.

In the first match of the day, the Tigers took on Queensborough. Going into the match, the Tigers knew that defending Queensborough's attack would be of vital importance. Though for the most part the Tigers did defend well, the high powered Queensborough offense was difficult to contain for long periods of time. The QCC middles were the main weapons. Throughout the match, QCC scored a lot of points on 1 balls set to QCC middles who powered the ball down into the seems. Despite the strong Tiger defensive effort, there was nothing they could do about a lot of the kills hit from Queensborough's middle position. Also QCC blocked very effectively at the net.

Feeling pressure from falling behind early, FIT made more errors than usual and lost the first set, 13-25 before playing more aggressively and confidently in the second set.  FIT hit to a much better attack percentage, this time managing to score 20 points in the second set by using smarter ball placement on attack attempts. The third set, however, would be all Queensborough, 11-25 wining the match 3-0. 
In the match, FIT had 15 kills, but also made 10 attack errors and 5 service errors. FIT struggled at times to covert good passes to productive sets and that led to some hitting errors and attacks that lacked power.  "I think the pressure got to us a little bit falling behind to a very solid team. It is uncharacteristic of us to make as many errors as we did today, and we were not able to make a comeback. When you go up against top teams, you can't afford too many mistakes," said head coach Keith Heron.  Despite the QCC attack, FIT played a great defensive game with Christina Wong doing a great job on serve recieve and Hannah Edwards  (28 digs) made great passes off hard-hit balls the whole match.

But the day was not a total loss. FIT was able to beat the host team KCC 3 sets to 0, only allowing 11, 16 and 13 points in the 3 sets. The win was a total team effort with 30 total kills registered by 8 of the 9 FIT team members. In the match,  sophomore Vanessa Bennish had 15 kills and 9 digs while fellow sophomore Jillian Staebler added 6 kills, 9 digs and 4 aces. "We played much better against KCC, I was glad that we were able to leave on a positive note," said Heron.

Top Tigers of the day were:
Vanessa Bennish (19 digs, 17 kills)
Sophomore co-captain Cassandra Burdick  (27 assists, 10 digs)

Next up for the Tigers, a double dual in Upstate New York versus Ulster CC and Dutchess CC on Saturday.

Go Tigers!