Gator Country

Kristy Jaeckel knows Florida's volleyball team has its work cut out to overcome a two-game deficit to Kentucky /Gator Country Photo by Tim Casey

Coach Mary Wise of the ninth-ranked Florida Gators has to dig deep into her memory to remember what it’s like to look up at another SEC team in the national polls. None of her players have any clue what that feels like. In fact, her players were just starting to go to school the last time that happened.

That’s because the Gators, who dropped below Kentucky in the polls this week, haven’t been in that position since 1993, when they were also looking up at the Wildcats in the polls.

“We’re kind of in a different situation than I’ve ever been in here,” said senior Elyse Cusack. “But now we have no room for error. We have to work the rest of the season and buckle down. This is it.”

The Gators don’t necessarily have their backs against the walls, but they are in a two-game hole to the Wildcats after dropping a match in each of the last two weeks, including something that Wise has never experienced --- getting swept in a conference game.

The Gators (12-3, 6-2) are in the midst of what Wise is calling the toughest six-game stretch of the year. Florida takes a 2-2 record during that stretch onto the road to take on Auburn (Friday at 7 p.m.) and Georgia (Sunday at 1:30 p.m.).

The rest of the SEC has certainly gotten Florida’s attention, and that’s a good thing for Florida, which is facing an Auburn team that Wise calls the most-improved team in the league. The Gators won’t be caught sleeping after their recent losses.

“It’s a wake-up call,” said sophomore Kristy Jaeckel. “It definitely is. We haven’t been in this position since I’ve been on the team and we haven’t been in this position in a while, if ever. I think that what we do from here on out will define us as a team.”

The definition, or redefinition, of these Gators will start by looking in the mirror and only worrying about themselves.

That means the Gators cannot worry about being in the hole or what any of the teams above them are doing. Wise said the Gators never worried about anyone else when they were up by two games, so there is no reason to change that mentality now.

More importantly, the Gators must focus on their actual execution, which has been a little sloppy this season.

The Gators have gotten past most of their competition based on the pure talent level of their team but have kept the competition in many matches due to their own mistakes. The Gators have committed more attack errors (289) than their opponents (279) this season as well as more service errors (136-102).

Jaeckel attributes those mistakes to a maturation process for the team.

“I think we’re just trying to expand our game and our knowledge of the game and with that comes a little room for error,” Jaeckel said. “Obviously no one wants that to happen. We’re trying to attack smarter and serve smarter and aggressively at the same time. Some matches it will work better than others until we finally reach that level of consistency that we’re looking for.”

That level of consistency will come when the Gators are able to focus on what they need to do to win the match, rather than allowing teams’ adjustments to affect their play.

“We can’t let what other people do affect what we do,” Jaeckel said. “A lot of times volleyball is a game of adjustments against each other. Who’s going to adjust and adapt better to the other team and what they’re doing against you? We just really need to focus on our side of the net.”

The Gators need to regain that focus and consistency in time to gear up for a second go-around in the conference’s double round robin play. They know that even after a few missteps, there is still a lot of volleyball to be played and that all is not lost.

“The only thing we lost is the ability to control our destiny,” Wise said. “We can’t control what Kentucky does. They have a two-match lead. All we can do is control what we do.”

The players are buying into that philosophy and are digging in for a stretch run that involves less room for error than any of these Gators have faced in the hunt for a conference title. Even if they do not reach that goal, they hope the tests they have faced so far will lead them to bigger and better goals.

“We’re not really feeling pressure,” Cusack said. “We know what we have to do. Really our ultimate goal is the NCAA Tournament. As long as we’re putting ourselves in the best position to win in December, we’re excited about that.”

And when Wise recalls that 1993 season, she can tell her current team about a group that went on to reach its second-straight Final Four.

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