The No. 15 Florida Gators have experienced some ups and downs in the past few weeks on the volleyball court, but they were able to end the conference regular season on a high note with a historic victory for the program and coach Mary Wise.
With Florida’s 3-0 (25-14, 25-8, 25-12) victory over South Carolina Friday at the O’Connell Center, Wise recorded her 600th career victory at Florida.
Wise has won more matches during her 19 years at Florida than any other Division I program has won during that time. Florida is now 600-66 (.901) under Wise, whose teams put together 18 straight Southeastern Conference championships before Louisiana State ended the streak this season.
Even on a historic day, Wise couldn’t help but joke about how long she’s been at the program.
“Only that I’ve seen a lot of warmups,” Wise joked when asked what the achievement meant before deflecting the attention from herself.
“Is it any different than No. 527?” Wise said. “I think we’ve been very blessed with all the great players that have come through this program and the quality of staff that we’ve been able to keep intact.”
Most importantly, Wise knows that there’s never time to sit back and enjoy the moment.
“The most important one right now we’re looking at is how we get No. 601,” she said.
The players all had a big grin on their faces when talking about No. 600. They also couldn’t help but let out a little sigh of relief after losing two of their past three matches.
“It’s nice,” said junior Lauren Bledsoe. “I feel like we redeemed ourselves a little bit. We know it’s not only for us. It’s for the coaches too. They play a big part in our playing.”
The most important coaching decision that has helped the Gators win their last two conference games after dropping matches to LSU and Tennessee was to tinker with the lineup.
Throughout much of the season, Wise has gone back and forth between playing Bledsoe and fellow junior Callie Rivers in the lineup while predominantly running a two-setter offense. Rather than switching between two talented playmakers, Wise decided to try to fit both of them on the floor at the same time. That meant shifting Bledsoe to middle blocker in favor of Kristina Johnson, a position Bledsoe hadn’t played since high school.
“My team helps me out a lot and backs me up,” Bledsoe said. “I haven’t really seriously played middle blocker since my senior year in high school. They just backed me up for anything I’ve been missing. I just tried my best and they were there for times it didn’t really work out. I really had no problem with the adjustment.”
After two dominating sets running the one-setter offense through sophomore Kelly Murphy, the Gators switched to their usual two-setter offense for the final set and didn’t miss a beat.
“It gives different teams a lot to prepare for,” Murphy said. “It just keeps them guessing whether we’re in a 5-1 or a 6-2. If one thing’s not working out, it just lets us know that we have another option and we can switch back and forth. It just gives us a lot of different looks and a lot of different options.”
Wise has tinkered around with her lineup before, trying to fit each player into her correct position on the floor, but she finally just threw the handbook out the window and opted for playing with the most talented lineup she could configure.
“We really like having Lauren, Callie, Kristy (Jaeckel), Colleen (Ward), Cassandra (Anderson) on the court at the same time,” Wise said. “By playing these players that are versatile enough to play these positions, it allows us to get all our playmakers on the court at the same time.”
The new mixture proved to be a deadly concoction as the Gators put together their most consistent offensive performance of the year just one match after using the lineup to avenge their early-season loss to Kentucky.
Florida hit .519 as a group, besting their previous season-high of .474 against Georgia. The Gators only had six hitting errors in the match, including an error-free second set in which the Gators hit .583 as a team.
“The offense was at a pretty high level,” Wise said. “To hit over .500 against anybody, you must be doing something right. Today I think we did a lot of things right.”
The Gators were led by Murphy’s usual all-around effort, as she put together nine kills, 28 assists and seven digs on the night. Jaeckel led the offense with 11 kills, while Ward (nine kills), Rivers (seven) and Anderson, who was 6-for-6, also contributed. Junior setter Brynja Rodgers entered play in the third set as the Gators switched to the two-setter offense and put up nine assists.
Florida also recorded nine service aces in the match, the most since the team recorded 10 aces in five sets against Florida State earlier in the season. Jaeckel, Ward, Bledsoe and Cusack each knocked home a pair of aces.
The Gators have put together some blistering offensive performances against teams at the bottom of the SEC all season long, and they know that it is a completely different game when a top-tier team takes the court.
“It’s one thing to do it against a team that has injuries,” Wise said. “It’s another thing to do it against a top-25 team that’s a lot bigger team.”
The Gators get that chance Saturday night at 7:30 against No. 25 Notre Dame.