Florida’s 20th year head coach Mary Wise goes for her 700th career win on Sunday, joining an exclusive club that includes just 15 other Division I head volleyball coaches all-time, when the No. 1 Gators take on border-rival Georgia on Sunday. Opening serve in the Stephen C. O’Connell Center is slated for 1:30 p.m. ET and the match will be carried live on Sun Sports with Larry Vettel and Missy Whittemore, and on WRUF Sports Radio 850 with Tom Collett and Cory Stephens.
The Gators (15-1, 8-0 Southeastern Conference) are riding a 10-match winning streak and are coming off a 3-0 sweep of Auburn on Friday afternoon. In that match, junior right-side/setter Kelly Murphy (Wilmington, Ill.) charted her 1,000th career point, becoming just the 29th player in school history to accomplish that milestone. En route to that feat, Murphy turned in her nation-leading fifth triple-double of the season and her school-record 20th career triple-dip with a match-high 15 kills on .583 hitting, 13 assists and 12 digs for 16.0 total points.
Wise, who is in her 25th season as a collegiate head coach, boasts an impressive career record of 699-131 (.842). In her 20th year at Florida, Wise has a record of 618-68 (.901), having helped the Gators to a nation-leading 618 wins since the 1991 campaign. Her impressive resume includes 18 SEC Championships, seven Final Four appearances and 18 NCAA Regional Semifinal berths in the last 19 years.
Florida currently holds a two-match lead in the SEC Championship race with 12 contests remaining for the Gators. Ole Miss swept No. 12 LSU on Friday evening in Baton Rouge, La., to extend UF’s lead in the league race. Ole Miss and LSU are tied for second in the SEC with two losses apiece, while Tennessee follows with a 6-3 conference mark.
As a team, the Gators lead the SEC in both blocks per set (2.60) and service aces per set (1.78). Florida is the only team in the SEC to have three players rank among the league’s top-10 in service aces. The Gators are second in the league (all matches combined) in hitting percentage (.273) and hitting percentage defense (.165). In conference matches only, Florida leads the SEC with a .298 hitting efficiency and is limiting its opponents to a .148 clip.
Florida is led offensively by Murphy, who ranks seventh in the SEC with a squad-best 3.24 kills per set on a .381 hitting efficiency, which ranks third in the league. Murphy also is fourth in the SEC with 0.34 service aces per set, which makes her the only player in the SEC to rank in the league’s top-10 in kills per set, hitting percentage and service aces per set simultaneously.
Junior outside hitter Kristy Jaeckel (Littleton, Colo.) and senior outside hitter Callie Rivers (Winter Park, Fla.) follow with 2.47 and 2.14 kills per set, respectively. Rivers leads the team and ranks third in the SEC in service aces with 0.35 aces per set.
Freshman setter Chanel Brown (Tempe, Ariz.) dishes out a squad-best 5.45 assists per set, while senior libero Erin Fleming (Orlando, Fla.) heads the team’s back-row effort with 3.78 digs per set.
Three Florida players average better than 0.90 blocks per set. Junior middle blocker Cassandra Anderson (Bakersfield, Calif.) is fifth in the SEC with 1.12 blocks per set, while senior middle blocker Lauren Bledsoe (Long Beach, Calif.) and sophomore right-side Tangerine Wiggs (Seattle, Wash.) follow with 0.98 and 0.90 blocks per set, respectively.
The Gators and Bulldogs meet for the 59th time in the history of the two programs (since 1984), with Florida holding a 49-9 advantage in the all-time series. Florida-Georgia is the longest-running rivalry in school history, as the two teams have met 58 prior times. UF is 46-1 all-time vs. UGA under Wise’s direction during her 20-year tenure at Florida. Wise has more victories against the Bulldogs than any other opponent in her coaching career. Thirty-four of Florida’s wins against Georgia have come as 3-0 sweeps. The two teams have met twice a year during the regular season in every campaign since 1992.
Georgia enters Sunday’s match in fourth place in the SEC Eastern Division with an 11-9 overall record and a 3-6 league mark. The Bulldogs are coming off a 3-1 win at South Carolina on Friday night, a victory that snapped a three-match losing streak. Georgia has played a total of seven five-set matches through 20 contests in the 2010 season. Georgia’s season-high for five-set matches in a single season is 10, which occurred both in 1988 and 2002.
The Bulldogs are led offensively by freshman outside hitter Brittany Northcutt, who averages a squad-best 2.67 kills per set. Senior middle blocker Valentina Gonzalez follows with 2.65 kills per set and ranks second in the SEC with a .399 hitting efficiency (all matches combined). Junior setter Kathleen Gates ranks second in the SEC with 10.42 assist per set, while junior libero Carla Tietz is ninth in the SEC with 3.40 digs per set. Junior middle blocker Ann Dylla, who was a high school classmate of Jaeckel’s at Heritage High School in Littleton, Colo., is first on the team and fourth in the SEC with 1.13 blocks per set.
Georgia head coach Joel McCartney is in his fourth season at the helm of the Bulldogs’ program with a 62-50 (.550) overall record. In his 14th season as a collegiate head coach, McCartney has a career record of 344-150 (.696).
