After Early Adjustments, Costa, Perales, Clicking at Pair 1

Hatters Set to Face No. 1 Florida State

#14 Stetson at FAU Beach Bash
Date	Friday-Saturday, March 19-20, 2021
Location	FAU Beach Volleyball Complex, Boca Raton, Fla.
Day 1	11 a.m. vs. #1 Florida State \| 3 p.m. vs. #12 Florida Atlantic
Day 2	11 a.m. vs. UAB \| 3 p.m. vs. FGCU
Live Scoring	None
Game Notes	Stetson Notes

Ana Costa and Carly Perales knew they had to get something figured out, and fast.

Three duals into the 2021 beach volleyball season, Stetson's No. 1 pair had yet to win a match. After 2-0 losses to TCU and FIU and a 2-1 loss to Florida Atlantic, head coach Kristina Hernandez had seen enough. She was ready to make a change.

"I just thought they were playing really sloppy," Hernandez said. "There were a lot of unforced errors, and it was very disjointed with how the flow of the game was going.

"I was already over it because we were dropping these matches and we weren't even being competitive," Hernandez added. "I know it's hard to win at the 1 all the time, but they are good enough to be competing and putting us in a position to win, and they weren't doing that."

Costa and Perales, two highly-skilled, highly-decorated players, were essentially playing together for the first time. Both have had numerous accomplishments in the sand over their careers, but those had come with different partners. This was a new pairing, and it wasn't clicking. However, for the sake of themselves and for the team, they weren't ready to give in.

"We knew the lineup needed us to work," Costa said. "I think that was a big thing because if we were to split, it might break up the whole lineup. Everyone might end up with a new partner. I said to coach, 'I know what you are thinking. It is bad, but you need to give us one more chance. We have to figure this out.'"

Prior to the start of the season, several factors limited the time Perales and Costa spent practicing together. Due to COVID travel restrictions with her home country of Brazil plus additional red tape with her visa, Costa spent three weeks quarantined in Chile before finally making it to Florida in late January. Once on campus, she was limited to another week of individual workouts before fully rejoining the team, and even that itself was a whirlwind with so many new teammates to get to know.

"I think it took me a lot of time to get back into rhythm," Costa said.

"I think we only had a week, maybe two of actually training together as a partnership before our first tournament," Perales said.

And when the season began and things weren't going well, the pair found themselves struggling to communicate.

"That was the biggest thing. I think they each had different perceptions of what their communication should have been like," Hernandez said. "They both needed to let their guard down and really just have more of an honest conversation and have some compromise. Carly can't expect Ana to be Sunni and Ana can't expect Carly to be Kyce or anybody else. You have to let down those barriers of what you think should be going on and understand the person that you're actually playing with."

"I really trust Carly as a partner, and coming in I thought it would be easy," Costa said. "When you expect it to be easy, then you get frustrated when it's not working."

"We just came together and talked about her old partnership and my old partnership," Perales said. "For example, Sunniva only wanted me to stay at the net and she wanted to run, whereas Ana told me she wants me pulling more and working on defense with her. We had to come together and figure out what works for us now, and not what used to work for us. I think that was a big switch for us, and also trusting each other a lot more. I can trust anything she says, I think that's a big change in our game."

Change on the scoreboard finally came in the final dual of the first weekend. With their match against South Carolina's top seed tied 1-1, Costa and Perales earned a 15-11 third set win to secure their first pair victory of the season. Although the team fell 3-2 to the Gamecocks, that win kept the partnership together and gave them a ton of confidence moving forward.

Fast forward three weeks, and Perales and Costa have now won nine in a row. They were named ASUN Pair of the Week last week, and they have won 17 of their last 18 sets.

"They are playing really strong right now, so it puts us in a better position," Hernandez said.

The 14th-ranked Hatters (9-3) will face the top-ranked Florida State Seminoles (13-0) to open the FAU Beach Bash at 11 a.m. Friday in Boca Raton. Stetson will then have a rematch with 12th-ranked FAU on Friday afternoon, before facing UAB and FGCU on Saturday. Friday will mark the first of four regular seasons meetings between the Hatters and Seminoles.

"I'm really confident. I think we can put up a battle against anyone," Costa said. "I think the whole team is doing really well in practice and all the pairs have been improving a lot."

Stetson has won eight in a row overall and five straight by 5-0 sweeps.  With four strong teams from the East Region on tap, the whole weekend will be an opportunity for the Hatters to move up in the rankings.

"I think we've been talking about that with them every week," Hernandez said. "It is really just prepping for the opportunities and then stepping up. I don't feel we overall as a team played very clean the first weekend. We've obviously had some time to get in a groove. We're playing much better, but we have to do the same thing. Florida State is a strong team because they just work hard on every single ball. They are not going to give you free points and let you off the hook, so we are really focusing on our intent with every play."

Perales is approaching two milestones as well. With 93 career dual match wins, the Hatter senior is just three wins shy of tying Rachel Noble's program record of 96. She is also seven wins shy of the 100-victory mark. Costa is three victories shy of the 50-win mark.

Fans can follow @StetsonBeach on twitter for the latest live updates from this weekend's duals.

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