Florida would have relished a win last night against Florida State.
In part to relieve the bad taste in its mouth, still lingering after its loss to FSU in last year’s NCAA tournament. But more so because of the difficult stretch of teams UF must face over the next couple of weeks.
Despite a closely contested match, the No. 11 Gators (3-1) couldn’t pull out a win against the No. 8 Seminoles (3-0), falling 3-2 on Thursday in Tallahassee.
"There were a lot of good things tonight," coach Mary Wise said. "We’re not hanging out heads. This is early season, you kidding me? With starting two freshmen, to go in, in this environment, and go five (sets) with (FSU)? It’s as great a performance as we’ve ever had here in Tully gym."
The effort was present for Florida, but the execution was lacking. Florida had a season-high 20 service errors and just three blocks on the night.
"You’re not going to beat a top-10 opponent on the road with 20 unforced errors," Wise said. "The service errors, we have the ability to score some points, we just kept shooting ourselves in the foot. And we had no business winning that first set."
Florida fell behind early in the first set after a string of errors, but rallied behind Alex Holston to capture a 30-28 victory and take a 1-0 lead.
The sophomore led Florida with a season-high 24 kills and a .447 hitting percentage.
"We’re definitely an aggressive serving team, and (errors) are always going to happen when you serve aggressive," Holston said. "Especially playing a team like Florida State with such great servers."
After FSU tied the match with a 25-21 win in the second set, Wise moved Holston from the front to the back row. The change immediately shifted the momentum in Florida’s favor.
"I think (the move) was really effective," Holston said. "It was a great call by Mary for me to play the back row. I think one thing is, we haven’t really seen that type of offense yet this year, so I think it was a great way to mix it up. I have different players open for different springs and different blocks."
Florida trailed 15-10 in the third set when Wise made the change, propelling the Gators to a 25-23 victory.
But the fast-paced Florida State offense was too much to overcome, and FSU captured the next two sets 25-23 and 15-9, respectively.
Overshadowed in the loss were strong performances from juniors Noami Santos-Lamb, who recorded 12 kills, and Simone Antwi, with 11.
"We lost, but our effort (was) so good," Wise said. "You think about Holly Pole, first time libero. Carli Snyder, first time in this position. Noami, first time. Rhamat (Alhassan), Mackenzie (Dagostino), first time. Those are five first time players playing in this environment, and what an awesome job they did."
Florida’s schedule only gets more difficult. In the coming weeks, they will face No. 3 Texas, No. 15 San Diego and No. 6 USC.
"All of our games this year are going to be challenging," Holston said. "Every team we face will teach us something new about ourselves, so we’re going to see what we can work on."
A radio broadcast contributed to this report
Follow Ian Cohen on Twitter @ibcohen5
Taylor Unroe jumps to serve the ball during Florida's 3-0 win against Georgia Southern on Friday in the O'Connell Center.
