Volleyball Faces Stanford in NCAA Round of 16
Thursday, December 11, 2008 | Volleyball
The No. 11/10 University of Florida volleyball team opens NCAA regional play on Friday when it faces No. 2/2 Stanford. The Gators will be looking to make their first trip to the regional finals since the 2005 season when the two teams square off at 9 p.m. EST in Moby Arena. The match will be carried live on ROCK 104 with Tom Collett and Missy Whittemore.
General admission tickets are available for $12 for adults, $8 for senior citizens and $4 for youth. Tickets are available at www.CSURams.com or by calling (800) 491-RAMS.
The Gators (27-3) are coming off of sweeps of Florida A&M and Colorado State this past weekend in the NCAA First and Second Rounds. Freshman middle blocker Cassandra Anderson (Bakersfield, Calif.) had a breakout weekend in her first collegiate NCAA Tournament, finishing fourth in the nation on the weekend with a .684 hitting percentage. Over the two-match stretch, Anderson totaled 13 kills on 19 swings with no errors for a .684 hitting efficiency. She also tallied a squad-best 1.33 blocks per set.
“This is a very talented Stanford team,” Florida head coach Mary Wise said. “This is a huge challenge for our group, but we are getting to face them on a neutral court. We are going to have to play-low error and we're going to have to score points on our own because Stanford's not a team that gives away points on a regular basis.”
Florida, which has advanced to regional play in 17 of the last 18 seasons, is led by freshman right-side/setter Kelly Murphy (Wilmington, Ill.), the 2008 Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Year, who is averaging a squad-best 3.25 kills per set on a team-high .361 hitting percentage. Over the two-match stretch, Anderson totaled 13 kills on 19 swings with no errors for a .684 hitting efficiency. She lead she team in total points with 405.0 and is also second in both assists (5.51/set) and digs (1.88/set).
Junior libero Elyse Cusack (Melrose, Fla.), Florida's all-time career digs leader with 1,618 and a 2008 second-team All-SEC selection, is the only player in school history to have eclipsed the 1,500 and 1,600-dig plateaus and she currently leads the team with 4.59 digs per set. She has recorded double-figure dig totals in 86 of 91 career matches.
Florida will be playing in Fort Collins for the second time this season after the Gators on Sept. 13 faced Colorado State during a two-match road swing through the Centennial State where they also played Colorado in Boulder on Sept. 11. The match will be a homecoming for two current Gators – freshman setter Cindy Bathelt (Colorado Springs, Colo.) and redshirt freshman outside hitter Kristy Jaeckel (Littleton, Colo.).
Florida and Stanford meet for the fifth time in the history of the two programs. The all-time series is tied 2-2, but the last time the two squads met was in the NCAA Second Round on Dec. 4, 2004 in Tallahassee, Fla. Stanford, which went on to win the national championship that season, defeated the Gators in five sets to mark the first and only time in Wise's 18-year tenure that Florida did not advance to at least the NCAA Tournament Round of 16.
Stanford, which is making its third consecutive NCAA regional appearance and its seventh in the last eight years, enters Friday's match with a 28-3 overall record and a No. 2 ranking in both major national polls. The Cardinal have won 13 consecutive matches since dropping a 3-1 decision vs. No. 5 Cal on Oct. 19 in Palo Alto, Calif.
Stanford is led by senior middle blocker Foluke Akinradewo, a Hollywood, Fla., native, who is a two-time Pacific 10 Conference Player of the Year. Akinradewo averages 1.45 blocks per set, is third on the team with 3.17 kills per set on .458 hitting, and has totaled a team-high 429.0 points this season. Sophomore outside hitter Alix Klineman averages a squad-best 3.60 kills per set with 2.22 digs per set and 0.60 blocks per set.
Complete results and a recap of Friday's match will be available at www.GatorZone.com.
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