University of Louisville
Florida
Volleyball Swept by No. 9 Florida
October 29, 2001 | Women's Volleyball
Oct. 29, 2001
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Aury Cruz had 15 kills to lead No. 9-ranked Florida to a three-game sweep of the University of Louisville volleyball team at the O'Connell Center in a televised match Monday night.
The Cardinals record moves to 16-5 and Florida improves to 17-1.
"The overall speed of their game made ball control and passing difficult for us," said U of L head coach Leonid Yelin.
After the orchestrated laser light show introductions, the Cardinals seemed to stay in the dark in the first game, letting the Gators out to a 10-4 lead. A Louisville timeout seemed to help the Cardinals regroup. Trailing 15-8, the Cards went on an run and forced a Florida timeout at 21-16 when Jing Ding aced the Gators. Florida came out hot, and went on a 9-3 to win the first game 30-19. The Cardinals were outhit .391 to .125 with the Gators outblocking them 4-1.
"It is a great atmosphere and certainly what we would expect in the post-season," said Yelin, whose team played before 1,036 fans. "Taking this timeout from conference play will help us because we don't have any teams that play this style in our league."
The Cardinals spotted the Gators nine points to start the second game, falling behind 13-4 on a kill by Niki Hartley. Florida gained momentum going up by as many as 14 at 24-10. The Cards had a mini-rally with five straight points to cut the lead to 25-15. U of L would score only twice more and fell 30-17. Cruz had 6 kills and the Gators hit .293. Louisville's blocking improved with four in the second set.
Louisville was sluggish out of the gate after the break and fell behind early, allowing Florida to go up 6-1. The Cardinal offense finally kicked in and they came within two at 9-7. The Gators roared back with five straight points and then the Cardinals could get no closer than five. Two straight points by Jacque Robinson sealed the Cardinals fate and ended the game 30-18.
Louisville hit .025 for the match and were outblocked 12-6. Sonja Percan led the Cardinals with nine kills, breaking her season streak of 20 straight matches with double digit kills. Emily Roberson, who set games two and three had the best hitting percentage with four kills on 11 attacks to hit .273. For Florida, Benavia Jenkins was the other Gator in double digit kills with 10 kills and eight blocks.
The match was televised by the Sunshine Network and was the first match to use the "game of the week" format with a sideline reporter and coaches wearing microphones.
