FGCU volleyball heads to Salt Lake City for NCAA Tournament

Author: Zach Oliveri
Published: Updated:

In the championship celebration, Florida Gulf Coast outside hitter Barbara Koehler couldn’t contain her excitement, especially with her teammates.

“You’re watching the game, you’re cheering on them and like cheering from the sidelines, score a point, great,” Koehler said. “But when you look at them and it’s like this is real. We made it. It’s great. It’s amazing.”

This is Koehler’s first trip to the NCAA Tournament. A dream that goes back to her playing days at Florida Southwestern. Now, Koehler is one of the first former FSW players to compete in the NCAA Tournament in volleyball.

“Some things you can only achieve in your college career and going to NCAA Tournament is one of them,” Koehler said. “You can win many championships throughout your career after college or even before, but going to the NCAA Tournament is special. You can only do it in those four years.”

The Eagles are back on the practice court on Monday after learning on Sunday they are heading to Salt Lake City to face the No. 5 seed Marquette.

“It felt like a dream,” FGCU right side hitter Destiny Nelson said. “It’s just we’re just glad to have something different something new. And we’re excited to get after it. “

The message from head coach Matt Botsford is clear, “We don’t want to be a program that’s just content that we made it to the NCAA Tournament. We have higher aspirations than that. We want to be successful and competitive any time we play. So that’s an expectation to win. We got to find a way to do that and it’s going to be very difficult against these kind of quality teams.”

FGCU plays Marquette Thursday night.

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