The Texas A&M volleyball team (7-15, 4-11 SEC) was swept by the No. 3 Florida Gators (23-1, 15-1 SEC) 25-18, 25-22 and 25-20 tonight in their second to last home match of the season.
Senior Kiara McGee led the Aggies with 12 kills on 34 total attacks and freshman setter Camille Conner led the Aggies in assists with 23.
Senior middle blocker Rhamat Alhassan led Florida in kills with 13 and had a .765 hitting percentage. The Gators used two setters in the match: Redshirt junior Allie Monserez and sophomore Cheyenne Huskey who had 20 and 18 kills, respectively.
The Aggies started the first set off strong, but were unable to overcome consistent runs put together by the Gators. The Aggies held a 5-4 lead at the beginning of the match; however, the Gators rattled off five straight points, taking a 10-4 lead and forcing A&M head coach Laurie Corbelli to use a timeout.
“We were spotty,” Corbelli said. “I thought we had some runs of really good in-system attacks that I thought we were going to start getting a rhythm off of, but we weren’t able to sustain the runs of high quality that sometimes just doesn’t stick with us.”
The Aggies were unable to overcome the Gators run, and fell 25-18 in the first set.
A&M once again started off strong again in the second set but were ultimately outmatched by the strong Gator middle blockers, including Rachel Kramer whose 6’8” frame posed challenges for the Aggie attack.
“We didn’t have our middles this match and going against their middles, that’s tough,” Corbelli said.
The Gator middle blockers dominated the Aggie middle blockers in the second set, hitting five kills as opposed to the Aggies one, and winning the set 25-22.
The Aggies went toe-to-toe with the Gators in the third set, coming within striking distance of their opponent, trailing just 22-18. However, the Gators finished the Aggies off with two kills and one attack error to win the third set 25-20 and the match 3-0.
“We were outmatched in a couple categories just with experience their front line has three seniors at one time and that’s one of the toughest in the country for sure,” Corbelli said. “I thought our lack of experience showed a little bit.”
The Aggies will attempt to finish their last home game of the season with a win on Sunday against a South Carolina team that they have yet to face this season.
“Sunday, we’re going to have a team that we haven’t seen yet and that will be nice,” Corbelli said. “We’ve seen so many teams twice that this will be a brand new opponent to do our thing against.”
Sunday’s match against South Carolina will also be Senior Day for the four Aggie seniors: Outside hitter Kiara McGee, libero Amy Nettles, defensive specialist Gabby Litwin and opposite hitter Ashlie Reasor.
“It’s going to be exciting, we’re going to have so much energy and drive because this is our last time at Reed Arena,” McGee said.
The Aggies will host South Carolina at 11 a.m. at Reed Arena on Nov. 19.