Gators Weekend Recap: Soccer And Volleyball Win Friday, Lose Sunday
The Weekend Recap includes Fridays, because when I was in school, Friday was definitely a part of the weekend (Thursdays might have been sometimes too, and let’s just lump Wednesdays in there as well).
The football team won yet again, but there were other Gator sports in action as well. (Psst! There usually are.) You may be a football fan first, and that’s fine, but there is a great amount of talent present in every sport. Go ahead and call it a football school, but make sure to pay attention to the rest of the athletics program as well. Here’s your recap of the weekend in Florida sports…
Cross Country
Hosting the Mountain Dew Invitational has been good for the Florida cross country team. On Saturday, the women claimed their seventh-straight victory in the event taking first place by five points over UNC. The Gators were led by the top three individual finishers: Genevieve LaCaze, Florence N’Getich and Cory McGee.
The men’s team just missed out on making it two wins for the Gators. Florida finished second to Michigan by only four points. Matt Mizereck led the Gators with a second-place individual finish.
Both squads compete in the Wisconsin adidas Invitational on October 14.
Football
The Gators won again and move to 4-0, but you already knew that because you read this, this and this.
Men’s Tennis
The men’s tennis team competed in the Southern Intercollegiate Championships and fell just short. Tripper Carleton and Spencer Newman made it the finals of the doubles tournament, but fell to Mississippi State’s Louis Cant and Malte Stropp. On the singles side, Nassim Slilam had to retire in his quarterfinal match against Wil Spencer of Georgia. Spencer would go on to win the singles tournament.
The squad being ITA All-American Pre-Qualifying on Saturday in Tulsa, OK.
Soccer
On Friday, the women’s soccer team beat conference rival Georgia for Florida’s fourth-straight victory. In the 70th minute Erika Tymrak would score the game’s only goal to give the Gators the 1-0 win. Tymrak’s seventh goal of the season gave Florida another close win in Athens. In the last five meetings at Georgia, four have been won by the Gators and none by more than two goals.
Sunday would not be as kind to the Gators as they fell 4-2 to SECC rival Tennessee. A fast start gave the Vols a 3-0 lead at the half, a lead they wouldn’t give up. Florida came out of the locker room a revitalized team and got two goals back within the first 19 minutes of the second half. It wouldn’t be enough though as Tennessee added their fourth goal in the 86th minute. Tymrak scored again in the loss to push her team lead to eight.
The 8-3 (1-1) Gators start a four-game home stand on Friday with Vanderbilt coming to Gainesville.
Volleyball
The women’s volleyball team used a strong start to finish off Kentucky 3-1 (25-12, 25-19, 23-25, 25-18) on Friday. The Gators were led by – and this should be no surprise – Stephanie Ferrell, Kristy Jaeckel and Kelly Murphy. Ferrell hit 0.588, Jaeckel had a match-high 15 kills, and Murphy added 19 assists and committed no errors.
On Sunday, the result wouldn’t be as favorable. Tennessee came to Florida and defeated the Gators 3-2. The entire match was a battle and came down to an 18-16 Vols victory in the final set. Florida played well and even outhit Tennessee, but it wasn’t enough as the Vols got the hard-fought win.
The Gators now head out on the road with trips to Auburn and Georgia coming up this week.
Women’s Golf
The women golfers had a rough go of it over the weekend, finishing in 13th place in the Mason Rudolph Fall Preview. Florida’s tournament total of 905 (+41) was 32 strokes behind winner UCLA. The Gator individuals didn’t fare much better with freshman Camilla Hedberg leading the way with a 22 (+6) which was good for 22nd place.
Florida doesn’t know what it has just yet, but did get to play the course that will be the home of the 2012 NCAA Championships. Of course, 17 other programs got a chance to play it over the weekend as well.
The Gators get a break before heading to Knoxville, TN for the SEC/PAC 12 Challenge on October 21.
Click here to check out this week’s Florida sports schedule.