It took Rhamat Alhassan three tries before she made the final point count.
With Florida up 24-19 in the deciding set, the senior drilled the match-winning kill, putting away a pesky LSU team — until the point was waved off because of a net violation.
The next play, up 24-20, she found herself in position to win it once again. But just like the previous play, the kill was waived because of another net violation.
Finally, after the Tigers clawed back to within one, Alhassan got the kill.
The top-ranked Gators (11-0, 3-0 SEC) managed to complete a sweep of the visiting Tigers (11-4, 2-2 SEC), although the match could have easily gone to five sets.
LSU kept it interesting, but ultimately the Gators pulled away (25-17, 26-24, 25-23) on Sunday.
The Tigers kept pace with Florida early in the first set and pushed them past 25 points for the first time this season in the second.
In the third, they nearly erased a 24-18 Gators lead before Alhassan ended the match.
“LSU pushed back,” Alhassan said. “They did some really good things. We’d much rather have that challenge of a team pushing us back. We don’t want to roll over teams. That doesn’t make anyone better.”
Carli Snyder’s game-high 16 kills paced the Gators, followed by nine from freshman Paige Hammons and eight more from Alhassan.
The numbers were part of an offensive effort by UF that had just nine attack errors, the lowest of any match this season.
Redshirt junior Allie Monserez (19 assists) and sophomore Cheyenne Huskey (13 assists) helped move the ball in one of the Gators’ best hitting performances of the season.
Senior libero Caroline Knop had 11 digs, including several that kept a number of rallies alive for the Gators in a tight second set.
As a team, Florida more than doubled LSU’s block total and hit an efficient .353 while holding the Tigers to just .182.
Both teams were sloppy at times. The Gators had a season-worst 11 service errors, and LSU botched seven of their own serves.
“We had a lot of service errors today,” Alhassan said. “That’s something that we’re going to go back into the gym and focus on — being confident with our serve, placing the ball, speed, location, that kind of thing. We’re going to be working on our offense.”
Florida now has seven sweeps in 11 games this season, and improved to 29-2 all time when ranked No. 1.
The Gators return to the O’Connell Center on Wednesday to face Texas A&M (4-6, 1-2 SEC).
You can follow Andrew Huang on Twitter @AndrewJHuang, and contact him at ahuang@alligator.org.
Rhamat Alhassan jumps up to block the ball during Florida's 3-0 win against Florida A&M on Sept. 15, 2017, at the O'Connell Center.
