Coming off Friday’s loss to Kentucky, the fifth-ranked Florida Gators were in desperate need of a strong showing before hitting the road for four straight Southeastern Conference volleyball matches.
After starting off Sunday’s 3-0 (25-20, 25-19, 25-21) victory against Tennessee at the O’Connell Center with a shaky first-set victory that saw the Gators commit 11 errors, seven of them off serves, Florida coach Mary Wise went to an unusual choice to get things going for the Gators in the second set.
Wise opted to let sophomore middle blocker Cassandra Anderson start off the second set as the server. Anderson has obviously served for the Gators before, but it was the first time of her career, college or high school, that she served first in a set.
“I was a little surprised,” Anderson said. “(Wise) pretty much (told me I would be serving) right on the spot.”
Anderson responded to the opportunity, helping the Gators (11-2, 5-1 SEC) out to a 7-0 start in the second set that set the tone for the three-set sweep of Tennessee (10-5, 3-2).
Although serving first was new for Anderson, she didn’t let the pressure of getting her team going get to her head.
“Just don’t mess up and keep it in the court,” Anderson said. “Don’t give them a point, basically. There’s not really pressure – just know that we can keep running and see how much you can get.”
Anderson also knocked home three service aces in the match, bringing her season total up to nine.
The middle blocker position doesn’t call for Anderson to need to serve very often, so she provided the Gators a weapon from an area that teams don’t usually see serving production from.
“There aren’t a lot of middle blockers in the country that serve,” Wise said. “Your libero can only serve for one player. It’s often the middle blocker position that liberos serve for. A year ago that was Kelsey Bowers. I’m not sure in Kelsey’s career that we were ever able to go on that long of a run. Cassandra might have had the longest serving run of any middle we’ve ever had.”
Wise didn’t discount the idea of using Anderson leading off a set to give the Gators a boost in future matches.
“Sometimes you put together the rotation based on your strengths or based on trying to neutralize a team,” Wise said. “It would be a pretty good offensive weapon to have out of the gate.”
Anderson’s serving set the tone in a Florida bounce-back victory that saw the Gators efficiently handle all of their opportunities and never lose control of the match, something that they were unable to do at points during Friday’s loss.
“Any chance we have,” said junior Lauren Bledsoe, “we work so hard to nail it when we can, to cap off a game as soon as we can, to take advantage of every single point and not let the other team have all these huge runs because that’s how we go to five games.”
Bledsoe was given the start and came through with 10 kills on a blistering .500 attacking percentage. Sophomore Kristy Jaeckel notched 10 kills while hitting .474 and sophomores Colleen Ward and Kelly Murphy each knocked home eight kills in the victory.
The Gators received solid contributions from all parts of their lineup, putting together a methodical victory over one of the conference’s best defensive teams. Tennessee came into the match having the second best attacking percentage allowed, second only to Florida at .169, and as the best blocking (2.9 per set) and digging team (17.07 per set) in the SEC.
In the victory, Florida hit .299 and outblocked the Vols seven to five.
Florida also made sure not to shoot itself in the foot, committing only 13 attacking errors, compared to 29 in Friday’s five-set loss to Kentucky.
“We realized that beating ourselves was not an option,” Anderson said. “So we needed to keep the ball in the court.”
Friday’s match saw the Gators get involved in an intense, high-energy duel with Kentucky. Sometimes the adrenaline overflowed, leading to the aforementioned mistakes that plagued them throughout the match.
But on Sunday, the Gators approached the match with a more calm and controlled energy that didn’t let them get caught up in all the highs and lows that come with volleyball, instead letting them focus on themselves and taking care of business.
“We knew that we had to just focus on our team from our loss,” Ward said. “We have to work more as a team together, so we’re kind of using our energy all together.”
The players weren’t shy about needing to take a stronger approach and attitude to every play. Losses are never easy to swallow, but the Gators proved that sometimes losing helps a team in the long run.
“The attitude has to change,” Bledsoe said. “After Friday, we really have no choice but to be on our way back up. That was pretty much rock bottom for us. The whole rest of the season is going to be about working our way back.”
Beating Tennessee was just the first step on that road and opposing teams should be wary because the Gators are planning on responding to the loss with a vengeance.
“Our attitude is that we’re not going to drop any more games,” Ward said. “Our goal is obviously still to win the SEC. Just work hard every day in practice. We’ll always have the Kentucky match in the back of our mind.”
As Sunday’s performance showed, that thought should provide the Gators with all the motivation they will need the rest of the season.