Alabama Volleyball Falls at No. 5 Florida, 3-0
10/3/2004 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
 |
|
GAINESVILLE, Fla. - The University of Alabama dropped its second consecutive Southeastern Conference match on Sunday losing a 3-0 (30-20, 30-22, 30-19) decision at No. 5 Florida on Sunday afternoon at the O'Connell Center in front of 2,233 fans.
The Tide, now 12-3 overall and 2-2 in the SEC, struggled all day on offense against a steady Gator defense. Alabama finished the match with a season low hitting performance of .029. Florida improves to 12-2 on the year and 4-0 in SEC play.
Alabama held its own against the nationally-ranked Gators early in game one, but a Florida string of 10 consecutive points midway through the frame earned them a double-digit advantage they never relinquished. Florida held as much as a 12-point lead en route to its 30-20 win. The Tide struggled offensively running at just a .081 pace while UF finished the game at .400. The opening game loss was just Alabama's fifth in 15 matches this season.
The Gators got off to a quick start in the second game taking an 8-3 advantage. Alabama fought back with strong serving and solid defense eventually knotting the score at nine. The two teams settled into a sideout battle for several rotations before Florida began slowly building a lead. UF pushed ahead by nine at 28-19 and closed out the game for the 30-22 victory.
An early 10-3 deficit proved too much for the Crimson Tide as Florida captured the match with an impressive 30-19 win the third game. Alabama's offense was unable to get into any kind of flow hitting -.036 in the last stanza.
All-American candidate Erin Heffner tallied 11 kills to lead Alabama. Heffner reached double digit kills for the 29th consecutive time including all 15 matches this season. Another bright spot for the Tide was the play of sophomore Abbi Blackburn who recorded five kills, six digs and was the only other UA player besides Heffner to finish with a positive (.231) hitting performance.
"Florida is a very good volleyball team that makes very few mistakes," said UA head coach Judy Green. "We are still a young team that has some things to learn. Hopefully, we can grow and get better from our experiences this weekend. I thought that Abbi Blackburn and Megan Hudson gave us a real spark and energy when they came in the match."
Florida recorded a .337 hitting percentage in the match, the highest by a Tide opponent this season. UF All-American Jane Callymore led the way with 13 kills and libero Rachel Engel posted 14 digs for the Gator defense.
The win for Florida extends their NCAA record win streaks to 134 regular season SEC wins, 110 overall SEC wins and 104 home SEC victories.
Having completed its tough four-match road swing, Alabama returns home for a stretch of four consecutive home contests beginning next Friday versus LSU at 7 p.m. in the CAVE.
