Tennessee Drops Straight-Set Match to #8 Florida

Friday, February 26

Knoxville

1 PM

University of Tennessee

6-6,6-6SEC

Florida

12-2,12-2SEC

Florida

Tennessee

February 26, 2021 | Volleyball

Box Score Box Score

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The Tennessee Lady Vol volleyball team dropped its series finale with No. 8 Florida in three sets (23-25, 27-29, 16-25) Friday afternoon at Thompson-Boling Arena.

UT (6-6, 6-6 SEC) was plagued on the offensive end by a difficult attacking day, hitting .157, recording 39 kills and committing 20 errors. Florida (12-2, 12-2 SEC) hit .263, put away 47 kills and scored 11 total blocks.

Outside hitter Lily Felts led UT in kills Friday, putting down 12. It is the eighth time this season Felts has reached the double figure mark in kills. The Knoxville native just missed her sixth double-double of the year as she came away with nine digs.

For the fourth consecutive match, Morgahn Finall notched double-digit kills as she ended the day with 10. The right side hitter put up the first double-double of her career as Fingall dug 12 balls.

In the middle, Danielle Mahaffey stood tall with 10 kills and three total blocks.

Tennessee was able to slow down T'ara Caesar who recorded just 12 kills, but Thayer Hall and setter Marlie Monserez made key plays for the Gators. Hall tallied 11 kills, while Monserez scored seven with quick dumps over the net. Monserez notched a double-double with 36 assists.

The Lady Vols and Gators fought back-and-forth through the opening two sets with each team responding to the others challenges. The second set alone featured 12 ties and six lead changes as the teams battled deep into the set.

Down 24-21 in the second, the Orange & White fought off set point three times to level the set at 24-24. Florida returned the favor as it fought off set point on three occasions before claiming the second set, 29-27.

Florida used its service pressure in the third to pull away and claim the series victory in three sets.

UP NEXT
Tennessee stays home next week as it welcomes Mississippi State to Rocky Top for a pair of matches. The series begins Friday March 5 with a first serve time of 6:30 p.m.

QUOTABLES
On her assessment of Florida over the past two matches…

"Well, Florida is a really good team. They present a lot of physical challenges just with their size at the net. I think they're a really good serving team, so that put us in some tough situations. I loved the way our team came back today after the match yesterday. There are just some parts of our game that we have to continue to clean up."

On what it shows about her team battling back-and-forth during Set Two…

"We had two swings to win it in set two. When you get to this level, you have to be able to capitalize on those opportunities, because you don't always get them. I loved that we never got down, in terms of our mentality. Obviously, we were down with the score, but we weren't down in terms of our mentality. We continued to fight and continued to find ourselves in a position to win that set, we just didn't finish."

On Morgahn Fingall's and Lily Felts' performances Friday…

"They're both vital to this team's success. They see a lot of sets. Both of them are in the front and back row. I really like what they're doing, in terms of how much they are producing for us offensively. We have to limit some of the errors that they are making to get that hitting percentage a little higher. Defensively, Morgahn has never been a six-rotation player. So, I love what she's doing in the back row as a server, defender, and attacker. She's getting better week by week and Lily continues to kind of carry us with all that she does."