Midway through their SEC slate, Mary Wise’s 10th-ranked Florida volleyball team has shown they have the talent to compete with anyone in the conference and across the nation. The trouble for Wise’s crew has been putting all of that talent together on a consistent basis.
Last weekend’s road sweeps of Auburn and Georgia were a step in the right direction, matches in which sophomore Kelly Murphy said the team showed more consistency than they had in a long time. The Gators (14-3, 8-2 SEC) are looking to continue to build on that consistency this weekend as the return to Gainesville to host Arkansas (Friday at 7 p.m.) and Ole Miss (Sunday at 1 p.m.).
Florida has been looking up at Kentucky in the standings since their loss to the Wildcats earlier in the month, but with Kentucky dropping their first conference match of the season on Wednesday and the Gators home for four of their final six weekend, things seem to be looking up for the team.
Although the Gators are still a game back in the SEC standings, being put in that position with two conference losses in the first half of the season has helped put the players’ mindset on the right track.
“It kind of made us a little bit more focused,” Murphy said. “We’ve been working a lot harder in practice because we realize — not that we didn’t realize before — that it’s kind of pounded into our heads how much harder we have to work.”
With as much youth as the Gators have on their roster, it’s easy to see why they can sometimes fall into the hype trap when they experience success, but all it takes is a little humbling to realize nothing can ever be taken for granted.
“We just have to continue to play well and show up every single match,” said senior Elyse Cusack. “I think the first half we took a couple of matches for granted. We came out with a couple of five game wins and a couple of losses. Just playing consistently will be really important for us.”
But on the flip side, the youthful Gators have shown that if anything, they are certainly consistent in one area, and that is in showing their ability to continually improve as a team.
At the halfway point, Wise has looked at the video and statistics and compared her team’s performance now to what it was back when the season began in August. Considering that the team was just bringing along junior setter Brynja Rodgers, who transferred to Florida in the summer, and was trying out players in new positions, it’s not surprising that Wise has seen much improvement over the first half of the season.
There was no question the biggest improvement has come in the area of blocking, an area that has had Wise’s attention all season long.
“Our blocking was fairly anemic early in the season,” Wise said. “We’ve worked at it. The players have given a lot of effort, a lot of attention and have worked so hard at improving. If it was easy, everybody could do it. It’s not easy, but credit these players for their due diligence and we’re reaping the benefits of becoming a better blocking team.”
The numbers speak for themselves. The Gators have outblocked six of their last seven opponents. The Gators were outblocked in their first 10 matches. Florida dominated play at the net last weekend, outblocking their opponents, 21-6.
The newest focus for the Gators has been winning the serving and passing battles. The team’s goal is to get as many easy points as possible while trying to make scoring chances just as hard for the opposition. The area has been a little more difficult for Florida to work on in practice because it requires the team to work on all facets of the game as opposed to blocking, which only required the players to focus on the point of attack at the net.
The Gators have come to realize that working on bettering themselves as players and as a team is a never-ending process.
“We still have a lot of improving to do,” said junior Callie Rivers. “We have started this week on what we can do to get better. At this point, we’ve played every single team. Hopefully next time we play them we can do better.”
The necessity for improvement comes from the team needing to correct a few flaws that have left them vulnerable at times and have left them with a few regrettable performances.
When asked about how she would rate the team’s performance during the first half of the season, Cusack noted that it didn’t turn out exactly the way the team drew it up before the season started but that there is still an entire second half to make amends. Junior Lauren Bledsoe pointed out the obvious in those two conference losses tainting an otherwise good first half, but vowed that the team’s performance in the second half would be much better.
Murphy simply pointed to the team’s development as a good barometer for grading the first half.
“I think I would give us an A for our improvement,” she said. “We improved on the areas we wanted to improve on and it has set us up for the second half of this season.”
The second half will certainly be a dogfight to the end as Kentucky (9-1), LSU (9-1), Florida (8-2) and Tennessee (8-2) are all in the running to take home the conference crown. With LSU hitting the road to take on Kentucky on Saturday and Tennessee on Monday, Florida should have a clearer picture of what the path to that crown will look like.
Florida’s continuing improvement also assures the rest of that group that they will most likely be facing a much stronger Gators team than they did the first time around.
“I think this team, as much as we have improved, still has more room for improvement, and that’s the encouraging thing,” Wise said. “With the goal being to play our best volleyball at the end of the year, this team is far from peaking.”
As Florida continues improving, there is no telling how high that peak will be.