Gators advance to Sweet 16!
December 1st, 2006
Junior opposite hitter Amber McCray recorded a match high 22 kills as the seventh-ranked and #9 seed University of Florida volleyball team advanced to the Regional Semifinal of the NCAA Championship for the 15th time in the last 16 seasons with a 3-1 win against Arizona State (30-17, 30-27, 26-30, 30-23) on Friday evening at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center.
Florida (30-2) advances to the Gainesville Regional where the Gators will host #8 seed Minnesota on Friday, December 8th at 7 p.m. at the O’Connell Center.
The Gators won their 22nd consecutive match of the season and moved to 33-2 at home in NCAA play under head coach Mary Wise. Florida out-hit Arizona State (16-15) .310-.212, while finishing with more kills (71-63), aces (6-5), digs (89-74) and blocks (15.0-7.0).
“It’s taken great performances in the past to make it out of this round and tonight was no different,” Wise said. “The biggest difference in the match is that we had better serving and passing stats than a great serving team. Block assists and digs are the two best indications of effort and for us to have 89 digs and 15 total blocks is a great indication of our effort.”
The Gators reached the 30-win plateau for the 14th time in school history and the 12th time in 16 seasons under Wise. Florida collected double figures in blocks for the 10th time in its last 12 contests.
Sophomore middle blocker Kelsey Bowers broke three records and tied another during the contest after finishing with a UF NCAA record 10 block assists and tying the Florida NCAA mark with 11 total blocks. She also broke the Gator records for sophomore total blocks (174) and block assists (152) in a season.
Freshman libero Elyse Cusack recorded 21 digs to become just the second player in UF history to reach 500 digs in one season and now has 513 – the second-best single season total in Gator history.
Junior setter Angie McGinnis nearly had a triple-double with 53 assists, 18 digs and eight kills, while junior outside hitter Marcie Hampton tallied 15 kills and 10 digs with junior Kisya Killingsworth adding 13 kills. Senior defensive specialist Rhian Davis added a career-high 22 digs.
The Gainesville Regional will begin Friday, December 8th with the first regional semifinal contest slated to begin at 4:30 p.m. followed by UF’s contest at 7 p.m. The regional final will be played on Saturday, December 9th at 4 p.m. with the winning team moving on to the 2006 Final Four in Omaha, Nebraska.
