Friday night against Georgia, it paid some big dividends.
The 13th-ranked Gators
recorded nine aces, highlighted by a career-high four from sophomore and
former Ocala Vanguard standout Holly Pole and three from redshirt
sophomore libero Taylor Unroe, en route to a 3-0 sweep of the Bulldogs
before an O’Connell Center crowd of 2,289.
“This week in practice,
we really worked hard on serving and passing,” Unroe said. “It gives
momentum to everyone on defense. Serving is the one thing you can do by
yourself to help the team, so it feels really good.”
With their 25-15,
25-23, 25-14 win, the Gators improved to 19-3 overall and remained
unbeaten in Southeastern Conference play — and atop the league standings
— with a 13-0 record.
The Bulldogs, meanwhile, fell to 13-10, 7-6.
Redshirt junior middle
blocker and former Eastside star Chloe Mann was her usual dominant self,
putting down a match-high 14 kills on 21 swings with just one error for
a match-high .619 hitting mark, while freshman Ziva Recek, who was
moved to a new position due to an injury to fellow freshman Gabby
Mallette, responded with her fifth double-double of the year (12 kills,
11 digs).
UF also got a big boost
from freshman outside hitter Berkley Whaley, who stepped into Recek’s
role on the left side and had five kills, two blocks and hit a season-
and career-high .455 with no errors.
“Berkley Whaley was
just terrific for us,” UF head coach Mary Wise said. “She was solid in
so many aspects. She was low-error, the two blocks, the five kills. She
didn’t have to lead us in any one statistical category. She just needed
to stabilize the lineup for us in Gabby’s absence, and she more than
answered the call tonight.”
UF held a 44-37 edge in
digs, led by Recek’s 11 and Unroe’s eight, and registered eight blocks,
led by four (one solo, three assists) from redshirt senior and team
captain Betsy Smith, who entered the match in set two — her first
appearance since suffering an ankle injury against FSU on Oct. 24.
“The digs are what
gives us a lot of energy,” Smith said. “As hitters, when our back row
defense is putting up great balls, we need to work even harder because
of how hard they’re working. We feed off each other in that aspect.”
Junior outside hitter
Brittany Northcutt led Georgia with 13 kills, but the Bulldogs were held
to a hitting mark of just .086 for the match while UF, which got a
match-high 33 assists from junior setter Taylor Braunheis, hit .277.
“This win, people on
the outside probably won’t look at it as big a deal as we know it is
with all of the injuries we had this week,” Wise said. “The first time
Betsy jumped was tonight in a week and a half. Gabby being out, we had
some other players out that were missing practice. The good news is with
so many injuries and so few people who could jump, we knew we could
work on our serving. So that was a positive because we served much
better tonight that we did earlier.
“If we can continue building on that, that will definitely help our defense.”
