Roundup: Volleyball bounces back with win over Vols

By Ray FitzGerald

Correspondent

It didn’t take long for the No. 5 UF volleyball team to bounce back from Friday’s home loss to No. 15 Kentucky. Technically, it took about 85 minutes.

Coach Mary Wise made a few lineup changes shortly before the match and the Gators came out and wholloped Tennessee, disposing of the visitors quicky in a 25-20, 25-19, 25-21 victory in front of 2,216 fans.

One of the changes included moving middle blocker Cassandra Anderson to first server at the beginning of each set. Anderson answered by logging aces early in each frame and helping the club take leads that extended well into each set.

UF (11-2, 5-1 SEC) gave Tennessee a dose of false confidence early in the match, handing the Lady Vols four of their first five points on attack and service errors and falling behind 8-6 following a 6-1 Tennessee run. The Gators struggled early on with serving, recording seven of their 13 service errors in the opening set.

“We realized that beating ourselves was not an option,’” said Anderson, who had never in her volleyball career been the first server. “We needed to keep the ball in the court. So the next two games we came out and kept the ball in play and worked from there.”

Reality set back in for Tennessee (10-5, 3-2 SEC) as Anderson served a seven-point run to start the second frame that took back the momentum. The Vols chipped away at an 11-1 Gator lead, surging on a 7-1 run of their own to narrow the deficit to three, but could not get any closer. UF led the entire set and well into the third.

Tennessee led twice in the third set, never by more than a single point, and never really threatened to challenge the Gators. The Lady Vols, who lead the SEC in blocking, became the second team this season to be out-blocked by UF, falling 7-5 at the nets. Lauren Bledsoe, who was called on for the start, and Kristy Jaeckel led Florida with 10 kills each. Colleen Ward recorded eight kills on her birthday, while Kelly Murphy added 22 assists. The Gators finished with a .299 attacking percentage to Tennessee’s .191.

The Lady Vols recorded one double-digit statline in the match with Emily Steinbeck’s 11 assists. Kayla Jeter and Leslie Cikra each logged six kills to lead the team, which was playing its third match this week.

On Wednesday, Tennessee went on the road to defeat Louisville, which is the only club to defeat Kentucky this season.

“Coming off of the loss Friday night, we certainly had (the players’) attention,” Wise said. “Their attention to detail, there was never a lull in terms of execution or effort.

SOCCER: No. 7 Florida (8-4-1, 2-1-1 SEC) lost 3-2 in double overtime at Mississippi (8-3, 2-1 SEC) on a rainy afternoon.

The two teams scored nearly identical goals within two minutes of each other to open scoring for the match.

Florida was without senior All-American Lauren Hyde, who sat out of the match with a respiratory illness. Starting center back Kathryn Williamson also played just four minutes due to a sore right ankle.

The Gators return home to play host to Alabama on Friday at 7 p.m.

MEN'S GOLF: The Gators finished the Gary Koch Invitational in a tie for third place. Florida carded its highest team round of the weekend with a 292 for a total score of 852.

- Special to Gatorsports.com