MATCH STATS: NCAA Tournament, First Round
- #11 Florida Defeats Alabama State (25-15, 25-13, 25-9)
- Florida will face in-state rival Florida State in the Second Round
- December 3rd, 2016 at 7:30PM ET
- Lemerand Athletic Facility (Gainesville, Florida)
RECAP
- Florida Team Leaders:
- Carli Snyder (14 kills, 11 digs, 4 aces)
- Alex Holston (13 kills)
- Rhamat Alhassan (8 digs, 5 blocks)
- Allie Monserez (39 assists, 5 digs, 1 ace)
- Alabama State Team Leaders:
- Briana Dorsey (6 kills, 1 block)
- Bayle’ Bennett (6 kills)
- Justus Tuiolosega (4 digs, 4 assists, 1 ace)
The NCAA First Round match was dominated by the Florida Gators, who led in kills (49 to 14), aces (9 to 1), blocks (7 to 3), assists (46 to 11) and digs (33 to 20). The Gators averaged a .464 team hitting percentage for the match, compared to just .016 for Alabama State.
Carli Snyder shined for the Gators, notching a double-double in just three short sets, and pounding down an additional 4 aces. It was her 10th double-double of the season, which leads the team.
The Gators’ Twitter account immediately looked ahead to Florida State after their First Round victory:
Movin on.
See you tomorrow, Florida State. #GoGators pic.twitter.com/9Kp7ImKH6c
— Gators Volleyball (@GatorsVB) December 3, 2016
Later tonight, at 7:30PM ET, the Gators will have to take on the Florida State Seminoles in the Second Round. The Gators defeated the Seminoles earlier this season, back in September, 3 sets to 1.
PRESS RELEASES
Courtesy of Florida Athletics:
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The 11th-seeded Gators (27-3, 16-2 SEC) swept Alabama State Friday (Dec. 2) night in the Lemerand Athletic Center, setting up an NCAA Tournament Second Round clash with archrival Florida State.
Saturday (Dec. 3) night’s showdown, scheduled for 7:30 p.m., will be the fourth time in since 2010 the Gators and Seminoles meet each other in the NCAA Tournament Second Round. Florida is 2-1 in the three matches already played during that span, coming away with a four-set win in 2015 and a five-set victory in 2010.
Florida was led by three-time All-American right side Alex Holston and All-SEC outside hitter Carli Snyder in its convincing win over the Hornets (24-9, 18-0 SWAC).
Snyder logged match highs in kills (14), points (18), and digs (11), recording her team-best 10th double-double of the season. Holston logged 13 kills on 20 total attacks. Both were only charged with two errors and hit better than .540 for the match, effectively spearheading UF’s .464 clip, the fourth-highest hitting percentage its ever recorded in NCAA Tournament play.
Defensively, UF’s size and length provided the difference, limiting Alabama State to a mere 14 kills and an .016 hitting percentage.
BROADCAST INFORMATION
Saturday, Dec. 3, vs. Florida State | 7:30 p.m. ET
Live Stream: SEC Network + (Tom Collett & Missy Whittemore) | GatorVision Audio Stream (Daniel Gillman & Josh Crow) | Live Stats
NOTABLES AND TRENDS
- Florida improves its all-time record against Alabama State to 2-0, with both of its victories being sweeps in the NCAA Tournament First Round.
- Alabama State’s 14 kills were the fewest UF yielded in a match since Aug. 30, 2013, when it held New Orleans to 12 kills.
- The Gators have held 12 opponents under a .100 clip this season, tying the 2005 and 2006 Gators for the most times that’s been done since UF’s 2003 squad held 20 opponents under that mark.
- UF has hit .400 or higher in nine matches this year, matching its total from 2015, which was the most times a Gator team hit that mark in a single campaign since at least 1998.
- Florida has hit over .450 in three matches this season, marking the first time it has done that since 2013.
- Florida’s nine service aces tied its season high, which it previously set against Central Michigan (Sep. 3) and South Carolina (Nov. 11).
- Carli Snyder had seven double-doubles in her first two years as a Gator—she has 10 this season.
- Snyder also racked up career-high four service aces, topping her previous career high of three, which she set against Auburn (Nov. 23) last week.
- Snyder’s four service aces also tied the second-highest total by a Gator in an NCAA Tournament match.
- Freshman outside hitter Morgyn Greer logged a career-high three blocks.
FLORIDA NCAA TOURNAMENT NOTABLES
- The Gators’ all-time NCAA Tournament record improves to 66-26 (.717).
- Florida head coach Mary Wise boasts a 65-25 (.722) all-time record in the NCAA Tournament, with all of her 26 postseason appearances coming with the Gators.
- Florida is 51-7 (.879) when hosting NCAA Tournament matches in Gainesville.
- This is the fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament in which Florida swept its way out of the opening round.
- The Gators have made 23 Regional Semifinals and 15 Regional Championships in program history.
- Florida is seeking its eighth all-time NCAA Semifinals appearance and its first since 2003, when it played in the NCAA Championship match.
Courtesy of Alabama State Athletics:
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – In a similar script to two seasons ago, the Alabama State women’s volleyball team met a highly nationally-ranked Florida Gators volleyball team on their home court and lost in three sets (25-15, 25-13, 25-9) in the first round of the NCAA Division I volleyball tournament on Friday at the Lemerand Athletic Center.
For Alabama State (24-9), it was a bittersweet ending to such a historic season for the program in which it ran the table with an undefeated conference season (18-0 in regular season, won all three matches in the Southwestern Athletic Conference Tournament).
“I do know one thing—that this loss will fuel our training in the spring for next season,” said Alabama State head women’s volleyball coach Penny Lucas-White.
“I hate that it ended this way—without leaving it all on the court— but when you look at our whole season, it was a wonderful journey. We enjoyed each other.
The girls grew. We have to a lot to give with six freshmen. There is a lot of promise. Jamie [Coleman] did a phenomenal job in nurturing this group this season. She challenged them and they responded extremely well. It was supposed to be a rebuilding year and we swept [our conference] so it’s a great year. But, at the end of the day, we are competitors and we have some more work to do.”
The Lady Hornets had some bright moments as it took short leads in the early goings of the first and third sets, but was unable to muster much of a rally past the midway part of the sets.
ASU took a 4-3 lead in the first set, but then allowed six straight points by way of three kills by the Gators, a pair of attacking errors and a service ace to fall behind 9-4.
The Lady Hornets played even to a 4-4 tie in the second set before dropping eight of the next 10 points with a series of miscues.
In the third set, Alabama State took a 3-1 advantage after a Briana Dorsey kill and some solid serving from Kori Kutsch.
But a taller Florida team (seven players who were 6-foot-2 or taller including 6-foot-8 Rachael Kramer) roared back with kills from their towering front line as Carli Snyder and Alex Holston each came up with big plays during the stretch to take a commanding 15-6 lead before going on to take the set.
Florida (27-3) will advance to play Florida State on Saturday, who defeated Cincinnati earlier in the day in four sets.
“Well, that wasn’t the outcome that I expected,” Lucas-White said.
“I felt like Florida came out well prepared and ready on all cylinders. I believe the youth of my team showed. I don’t think they responded well at all. This is something that we’ve had to prepare for. We talked to them in practice about hitting high off hands, roll shooting and hitting shots. It’s obvious that they didn’t respond so I was very disappointed. This wasn’t the first time that we saw a team that had a big block. We played Arizona, Pepperdine and SMU so I was disappointed because of their apprehension of adjusting.”
Dorsey led the Lady Hornets with six kills and a block while Bayle Bennett added six kills.
Kutsch had seven assists and three digs and senior Jamie Coleman had a team-high five digs.
“As a team, we didn’t play as well as we could have,” said Coleman, the senior who played her final match as a player at Alabama State.
“We didn’t adjust quickly enough on defense. A lot of their players were jumping over our block. That’s something that we didn’t adjust on. I feel that I could have played better. We didn’t play how we should have played and that’s the most disappointing thing about tonight.”
The season marked the Lady Hornets’ third overall NCAA Tournament appearance in the last four seasons and fourth consecutive season in which ASU won at least 20 matches.
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