A dominating second-half performance by Florida against Tennessee on Sunday was not enough to overcome an offensively inefficient and mistake-filled first-half effort.
The No. 6 Gators (8-3, 1-1 Southeastern Conference) fell behind the No. 12 Volunteers (8-2, 1-1 SEC) 3-0 in the first half before falling, 4-2, in Knoxville, Tenn.
Florida mustered just two shots in the first half — neither of which was on goal — before controlling the run-of-play much of the second half with two unanswered goals but ultimately coming up empty.
“We kind of dug ourselves a little bit of a hole in the first half on efficient finishing by Tennessee but errors on our part,” said Florida coach Becky Burleigh.
The Volunteers struck quickly, making it 1-0 in the fifth minute when junior forward Alexis Owens intercepted an attempted back pass from Gators defender Katie Kadera to goalkeeper Taylor Burke and put the ball in the back of the right side of the net.
In the 23rd minute, Tennessee took advantage of another Florida mistake when midfielder Caroline Brown jumped on a Florida pass at midfield.
Brown played a through ball to senior forward and Gainesville native Emily Dowd at the top of the box as she was breaking past the Gators’ back line and put it past Burke to the right for the goal.
Burleigh said the majority of Florida’s errors occurred on plays where it simply had trouble playing the ball out of the back.
Such a play led to Owens’ second goal, when she took the ball into the box and beat multiple UF defenders before getting tackled. Florida was unable to clear the ball, and Owens recovered to put a shot past Burke in the upper-right corner of the net from 10 yards out.
Florida came out aggressive in the second half as freshman forward Jillian Graff was fouled inside the Tennessee box in the 47th minute.
Junior forward Erika Tymrak converted on the ensuing penalty kick to score her team-leading eighth goal of the season.
The Gators were able to pull within a goal of the Volunteers in the 64th minute when Jo Dragotta played a through ball to Havana Solaun. Tennessee keeper Julie Eckel got to the ball first, but it ricocheted off of her, bounced off Solaun’s thigh and went into the empty net.
The Gators controlled the ball for the majority of the remainder of the game, recording 11 second-half shots before Tennessee was able to get one off.
But it was the Volunteers’ first shot of the half that ended the Gators’ comeback chances.
Owens, who had just one goal on the season coming into Sunday’s game, completed a hat trick in the 86th minute when she received a pass from Brown in Tennessee’s attacking third.
She dribbled the ball up the left side and got a shot off by a sliding defender, sliding it past a diving Burke to put the game out of reach.
“We had a great response at halftime in terms of coming back, but not quite enough,” Burleigh said. “A little too late.”
A television broadcast contributed to this report.
