South Florida Volleyball Falls, 3-1 to Florida

Michelle Collier

After dropping the first two games of its match against the Florida Gators in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, the University of South Florida volleyball team rebounded with a victory in the third, but it wasn’t enough as they fell in the match, 3-1.


GAINESVILLE, Fla. – After dropping the first two games of its match against the Florida Gators in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, the University of South Florida volleyball team rebounded with a victory in the third, but it wasn’t enough as they fell in the match, 3-1.



The Bulls came out with fight in the first game, racking up an eight-point lead, 15-7, before UF used short runs to pull back into the game, eventually tying up the game at 27-27. The Bulls had game point twice, but were unable to convert, but battled the Gators into the 30s before finally succumbing, 35-33. Senior Michelle Collier led the Bull charge in the game with 10 kills, while senior Jolene Patton followed closely with seven of her own. The Bulls also had no service errors in the game.



The second game wasn’t the nail-biting experience that the first one was. UF jumped out to a 5-1 lead to start off the game and simply cruised from there, despite strong hitting from the Bulls, who bounced back from their .115 hitting percentage in the first game with a .424 performance in the second. Collier again led the Bulls with eight kills, but Gator Aury Cruz had six of her own to lead UF.



The Bulls found their spark for the third game. After UF tied up the game at 3-3, USF never again trailed. In fact, they never again were even tied with the Gators. From the 3-3 tie, the Bulls went on a 12-4 run to take a 16-7 lead. UF wasn’t content to stay behind, though, and staged its own 7-1 run to close it to within three, 17-14. It was the Bulls’ game from there on out, though, as the Gators were only able to muster three more points, while the Bulls rattled off 13 to close out the game with a 30-20 victory. Patton again came up big for USF with six kills, three of them coming in the five-point run the Bulls finished the game with.



The fire didn’t fizzle at all, as the Bulls added to that five-point run with two-straight points to open up the fourth game. USF used that momentum to take an 8-3 lead, but began to struggle at that point as the Gators had five-straight points to tie it up, 8-8--the first of six ties in the game. At the 14-14 tie, though, the Bulls put themselves in a seven-point hole when UF rattled off seven unanswered points that USF could never recover from as they dropped the final game of the season, 30-18.



“I think we gave Florida a run for their money,” head coach Nancy Mueller said. “I think we played exceptionally well. I think we could have played a little bit better. Game one was a big determining factor for us. It’s hard to get re-motivated when you are down two games to nothing. I think this team showed what they were all about.”



Patton and Collier closed out their career at USF with outstanding games. Collier collected 28 kills and 13 digs, while Patton had 21 kills off .348 hitting and 12 digs. They were only two of five Bulls who tallied double-digit digs on the match. Senior Ale Domingos, senior Maryann Mooney and freshman Leonie Mueller had 14, 11 and 11, respectively. Because of that effort, USF out-dug UF, 66 to 54.



“I looked at the numbers, and our seniors really stepped up big tonight,” Mueller said. “That is what you have to have from your seniors.”



Sophomore Shameka Mitchell also played an incredible match with 12 kills off 20 attacks with just four errors for a .400 hitting percentage. Sophomore Rachel Jobes was vicious at the net for the Bulls with career-high-tying three block solos and two block assists.



Domingos had 58 assists on the night to combine with her 14 digs for yet another double-double.



“Florida had to beat us tonight,” Mueller said. “We did not lose to them. They had to beat us. They had to come out with everything they had to beat us, and they had the advantage—they were at home. That is a big deal.”



The loss finalizes the Bulls season with a 30-7 record.