No. 5/6 Gators Close Out Road Swing At Arkansas on Sunday
Saturday, September 19, 2009 | Volleyball
The No. 5/6 Florida volleyball team wraps up its six-match road swing on Sunday when it travels to Fayetteville, Ark., to face the Arkansas Razorbacks. Opening serve is set for 2 p.m. ET in Barnhill Arena and the match will be carried live on ROCK 104 FM with Cory Stephens.
The Gators (7-1, 1-0 Southeastern Conference) are coming off a thrilling five-set victory against Ole Miss on Friday night in Oxford, Miss. Sophomore right-side/setter Kelly Murphy (Wilmington, Ill.) charted her eighth career triple-double and her second this season with a career-high 20 kills on .441 hitting, 32 assists and a career-high 16 digs. Sophomore outside hitter Kristy Jaeckel (Littleton, Colo.) followed with a season-high 19 kills with 11 digs for her sixth career double-double.
On the season, sophomore outside hitter Colleen Ward (Naperville, Ill.) leads the team and ranks seventh in the SEC in kills per set with 3.31, while Jaeckel ranks 10th in the league with 3.00 kills per set. Sophomore middle blocker Cassandra Anderson (Bakersfield, Calif.) is third in the conference in blocks per set with 1.16 rejections per frame.
Senior libero Elyse Cusack (Melrose, Fla.) lead the team and ranks fifth in the SEC with 4.09 digs per set. Cusack on Friday night turned in a match-high 22 digs to move to third-place on the SEC's all-time career digs list with 1,765 scoops. She is looking to become just the third player in league history to eclipse the 2,000-dig plateau.
Florida and Arkansas meet for the 29th time in the history of the two programs. The Gators lead the all-time series 26-2 after first meeting the Razorbacks during the 1994 season when UA added volleyball to its athletics program. From 1995-99, Florida and Arkansas met annually to decide the SEC Tournament title.
The Razorbacks enter Sunday's match with a 7-5 record, including a 1-0 mark in league competition. Arkansas posted an easy 3-0 victory against South Carolina on Friday night in the league opener in Fayetteville, Ark. Jasmine Norton led the way with a team-high 17 kills to go along with five blocks. Phoebe Bautista registered a match-high 20 digs as one of four Arkansas players to record double-figure digs.
Complete results and a recap of the match will be available at www.GatorZone.com.
For all of the latest information on Florida Volleyball, please log on to www.GatorZone.com/volleyball. Follow the Gators on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GatorZoneVB and Coach Mary Wise on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GatorMary.
The University of Florida is home to the 2009 NCAA Volleyball Regional. For ticket information, log on to www.GatorZone.com/tickets.
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