After a disappointing four-set loss to No. 20 Tennessee on Friday, the No. 13 Florida volleyball team was just shooting for a win Sunday against Kentucky in Lexington.
But the No. 24 Wildcats were looking to make the Gators’ recent loss into a road-trip trend.
In a five-set back-and-forth battle, Florida once again struggled with its play from first contact and dropped its second match in a row to a Southeastern Conference opponent, 3-2 (25-23, 19-25, 25-21, 17-25, 15-9).
“Whoever was leading the ball control was winning the match,” Florida associate head coach Dave Boos said. “When we can’t win the ball-control game, we’re going to have a problem, and we obviously didn’t make enough plays there at the end.”
Despite strong efforts from a varied lineup in convincing wins in the second and fourth sets, Florida (17-5, 10-3 SEC) now holds a 0-5 record when dropping the first set.
Although the Gators outdid the Wildcats (21-4, 12-2 SEC) with their .276 hitting efficiency, Kentucky’s offense took advantage of multiple opportunities from UF’s struggles on serve receive and defense.
“We held them to .227, so we out-hit them by 50 points, which we’ve had multiple games like that,” Boos said. “Friday night was the first time we’ve gotten out-hit by someone, so hitting numbers aren’t really what winning the match is about.”
Although Florida struggled as a unit, the Gators did see a starring performance from sophomore Chloe Mann.
Mann started in place of senior Cassandra Anderson at middle blocker and finished with a career-high 10 kills. The Gainesville native also notched two solo blocks, five block assists and seven digs.
“You can’t be happier for Chloe,” Boos said. “She’s a player that not many people have seen play. She’s a real talent. … To be honest we didn’t get the ball to her enough because of our ball control. She probably would have left here with 15 or 20 kills if we got the ball to her more.”
With hopes for an SEC title gone, Florida is now just looking to regroup and finish this season as best it can. The team will play again Friday at home against Alabama at 4 p.m.
“The biggest thing is that this weekend was a little bit of rattler,” Boos said. “You have to come back from this mentally.
“We have to go back to the drawing board a little bit and get our confidence back. We’re a little bit inconsistent with our confidence match to match and set to set, and we have to improve on that.”
