MIAMI (November 24, 2018) -- The FIU indoor and beach volleyball programs announced the signing class of the 2018-19 campaign. Emma Erteltova, Abbie Hughes and Brandis Smith have committed to play indoor volleyball for the Panthers next fall, while Isabella Kuchenberg and Sabian Sasser are joining FIU to play beach volleyball in the spring. Erteltova and Hughes are also expected to join the beach team in the spring and play both semesters.
 
"I am very happy with this signing class for both beach and indoor," said FIU Head Coach Rita Buck-Crockett of this signing class." These athletes will make an immediate impact on both programs. They all have played at the highest level and are winners! I look forward to coaching them and making them a part of our FIU family."
 
Erteltova comes to FIU from Žilina, Slovakia, where she has been playing indoor volleyball for the past eight years and training for beach volleyball for four. At nearly 6' 3", the middle blocker played for the 2015 and 2016 VA Žilina Slovak Champions, which earned third-place in 2017. She was the 2015 Team MVP. Erteltova was on the third-place beach tandem in 2016 and 2017 for the U20 Slovak Championships and finished second in the U22 Championships. She has international playing experience as well, taking part in the 2016 and 2017 MEVZA (Middle European Volleyball Zonal Association) Championships. She finished on the fifth-place team in beach volleyball those two years, on the third-place U20 indoor team in 2017 and played at the European Championships on the U18 team in 2014 and 2016, as well as the U20 team in 2017. Her mother played basketball and her father played indoor and beach volleyball. Her younger sister, Ella, is a setter on several of the teams she plays with in Slovakia.
 
Hughes is an Under Armour Honorable Mention All-American and Second-Team All-State setter who hails from Cincinnati and stands at 5' 9". She plays at William Mason High, which has won the Greater Miami Conference the past two seasons. She has won All-Conference twice, in addition to an All-City honor after amassing over 2,000 assists in her prep career as the Team MVP the last three seasons for the Comets. Her Elevation club program finished 11^th in the National Open last year after a National Championship in 2015. She was placed on the 2017 Asics Saint Louis Presidents Cup All-Tournament Team. She won five tournaments in beach in 2014 with four different partners. She also claimed the 14s and 16s tournament championship at the Ohio Regionals. This year, she captured seven-straight tournaments in the 18 open division. She won the Gulf Shores Championship, knocking off the top-rated team in the country. She finished third at the USA Volleyball Nationals in beach and was the top-ranked player in USA Volleyball at the end of the beach season, making it onto the Junior Volleyball Association Beach Watch List. She has remained an Honor Roll student in her time at Mason.
 
Kuchenberg stands at 5' 7" and resides in Hobart, Indiana. She is a three-time MVP for the Bishop Noll Institute, which was a Semi-State Runner-up in 2014. She holds the state record for aces in a career, at 531. In addition, she holds numerous school records, including most career kills (1,680) and digs (1,742), most aces (152) and digs (468) in a season and most aces (21) and digs (34) in a match. The all-around contributor was All-Conference and All-Area for four years and an All-State performer her first three seasons, awaiting word on a fourth such honor. She also played for the Ignite Elite club squad for the previous three summers. Kuchenberg comes from an athletic family, as locals may remember her grandfather, Bob, as an offensive guard on the Miami Dolphins in their undefeated 1972 season. He is one of three relatives she has with NFL experience.
 
Sasser attended the Club Med Academies in Port St. Lucie, Florida for the past three years, as she has trained to become a beach volleyball performer. She earned Rookie of the Year at the Academies in 2017. As a freshman at Spanish Fort (in Alabama), her team won the State Championship prior to her departure to the Sunshine State. She was the MVP on that squad. A member of the National Honor Society, she has been a consistent performer on the Honor Roll. Also a member of an athletic family, her father, Mackey, played in Major League Baseball for nine seasons with four different teams. She played club indoor volleyball for the last three seasons and club beach volleyball for two years, with one more to go in the spring before her collegiate career begins.
 
Smith is a 6' 1" right side from Gainesville who plays for St. Francis Catholic Academy, which was the defending Florida 3A State Champion this season. She was a Second-Team Gainesville Sun honoree as a sophomore and followed that up with a First-Team selection as a junior. Her St. Francis squad was the District Champion her freshman and junior seasons, earning District Runner-up honors her sophomore and senior campaigns. She also competed on the 352 Elite club team, which won an AAU National Championship in 2016 and a Jeep Tournament Championship, where she was named MVP, that summer. She also competed with the Ocala Power United, which was a Top 10 team at the USAV National Championship this year. Another excellent student, Smith is also a member of the National Honor Society and National Society of High School Scholars, and Mu Alpha Theta.
 
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About FIU Athletics: FIU Athletics is home to more than 400 student-athletes in 18 different sports. Athletic events are played in eight different venues on FIU's campuses (Modesto A. Maidique and Biscayne Bay), including Lime Court at FIU Arena and Riccardo Silva Stadium.
 
About FIU: Florida International University is classified by Carnegie as a "R1: Doctoral Universities - Highest Research Activity" and recognized as a Carnegie Community Engaged university. It is a public research university with colleges and schools that offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs in fields such as business, engineering, computer science, international relations, architecture, law and medicine. As one of South Florida's anchor institutions, FIU contributes almost $9 billion each year to the local economy and is ranked second in Florida in Forbes Magazine's "America's Best Employers" list. FIU graduates are consistently among the highest paid college graduates in Florida and are among the leaders of public and private organizations throughout South Florida. FIU is Worlds Ahead in finding solutions to the most challenging problems of our time. FIU emphasizes research as a major component of its mission with multiple state-of-the-art research facilities including the Wall of Wind Research and Testing Facility, FIU's Medina Aquarius Program and the Advanced Materials Engineering Research Institute.  FIU has awarded more than 220,000 degrees and enrolls more than 54,000 students in two campuses and centers including FIU Downtown on Brickell, FIU@I-75, the Miami Beach Urban Studios, and Tianjin, China. FIU also supports artistic and cultural engagement through its three museums: Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, the Wolfsonian-FIU, and the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU. FIU is a member of Conference USA and more than 400 student-athletes participating in 18 sports. For more information about FIU, visit http://www.fiu.edu/.