Nov. 12, 2004
Gainesville, Fla. – The Florida Gators continued their dominance over the SEC conference as the South Carolina Gamecocks were the latest target and suffered a 3-0 loss. The Gamecocks are now 12-12 overall and 5-10 in the SEC while Florida improves to 23-2, 15-0 in the SEC and extends its conference win streak to 145 matches. Shonda Cole and UF’s Jane Collymore both had 13 kills to lead the match. Nicole Miller led the Gamecocks in hitting with a .636 percentage (7k, 0e, 11ta).
“We had some good moments tonight but we would continuously got ourselves into tough situations during some rotations and that was tough to climb out of,” said head coach Kim Hudson. “We had a lot of errors tonight and you can’t allow those against a team like Florida.”
Errors played a big role in the match as the Gamecocks had a total of 28 attack errors and never hit above .100. Florida recorded only 14 attack errors and never hit below .290.
Despite comparable numbers in game one, Florida took a 1-0 lead with a 30-18 win. Statistically, Florida had 15 kills to USC’s 14 and the Gamecocks had 14 assists to the Gators’ 13. In the total block department, Florida had two to USC’s one. Both teams had 16 digs but the biggest difference was errors. USC had 10 errors to hit .091 while UF had only four errors and hit .297.
In game two, USC managed an early six-point lead, 11-5, before the Gators began to charge back with a 7-0 run to jump ahead. Back-to-back errors by USC and a kill by Collymore put the Gators up 12-11. After several back and forth lead changes and ties, Florida eventually pulled ahead to establish a seven-point lead. USC fell short of any more rallies and the Gators continued to coast and went up 2-0 on a 30-22 game two win. Carolina continued to struggle with errors as they recorded 10 more and had only 12 kills for a .053 percentage.
The Gators dominated game three to finish off the 3-0 win with a 30-18 victory. USC was down 13-17 before Florida went on a 9-2 run to solidify the lead. The Gamecocks would score only five more points as the Gators cruised to clinch a share of the SEC title, their 14th overall.
USC will close out the regular conference season on Sunday when they meet the Georgia Bulldogs at 1:30 p.m. It will be the Gamecocks last chance to try and earn a victory over and Eastern division team.
