FSW Volleyball wins back-to-back NJCAA National Championships

Writer: Sylvie Sparks
Published: Updated:
FSW Volleyball wins back-to-back NJCAA National Championships

The Florida Southwestern Buccaneers are back-to-back national volleyball champions.

The Bucs brought home their second straight NJCAA Division I title in only their fifth year as a program.

When Thais Baziquetto-Allen started coaching volleyball, national championships weren’t on her mind.

Thirteen years and two national titles later her success as head coach at FSW is still sinking in.

“It’s just a little surreal,” Baziquetto-Allen said. “I see the trophy, I see both trophies together and I’m like, ‘Okay it is real. We got it. We’ve done it.’

Baziquetto-Allen is 119-24 in five years at FSW, this season leading the Buccaneers to a record setting 31-1 record.

This season’s one blemish came against Miami-Dade.

“We’ve been talking a lot about why we lost that game, what we can change for it and we did it for the past couple of weeks,” sophomore outside hitter Giulia Bonifacio said.

That renewed focus paid off when the two met again in the National Championship on Saturday.

The Bucs beat their rivals 3-1 to win the team’s second straight title.

Baziquetto-Allen gives props to her players for fighting back after dropping the first set.

“I could hear them from the sidelines saying, ‘That’s not our game. That’s not what we do,’”  Baziquetto-Allen said.

Outside hitter Alondra Alarcon told me the team knows how to rally together.

They practice that on the court and off.

Consider this, nearly every player on the FSW roster is from a different country.

“We learn from each other’s different cultures and it’s really amazing you know because we have different techniques, different ways to play, but we are just a team when we are on the court,” Alarcon said.

A team that shares the international language of winning.

While the team is still celebrating this year’s National Championship, Baziquetto-Allen said preparation for next season has already begun.

Copyright ©2024 Fort Myers Broadcasting. All rights reserved.

This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without prior written consent.