With the Gators already crowned the champions of the Southeastern Conference, Chloe Mann didn’t need a career performance Wednesday night.
But the junior middle blocker still gave her No. 15 Florida (24-4, 18-1) squad a career-high eight blocks en route to a 3-1 (17-12, 8-11) road victory over Auburn (25-23, 23-25, 25-9, 25-20).
And on Friday against LSU, Mann previously tied her career high in blocks with seven. Unlike that match where she hit .167, the Gainesville native also remained solid on offense Wednesday night.
In 25 attacks, she had 14 kills and no errors. Her .560 hitting clip led the team and coach Mary Wise said she wondered why her teammates didn’t give her more opportunities to score in the match.
“For whatever reason, we did not get the ball to her nearly enough,” Wise said. “If you’ve got a hot hand, you better give her the ball so that’s something we can certainly address.”
Wise said her team had to rely on Mann and her defensive effort because the Gators committed 21 unforced errors in the match.
The last time Florida had that many unforced errors was in a loss to Florida State in Tallahassee on Oct. 24.
“I thought the blocking saved us tonight,” Wise said.
Ziva Recek took 54 swings against the Tigers but only managed to land 17 of them while also committing nine errors, which is one shy of her career high.
This marked the seventh time Recek hit under .200 in a match.
“We [got] a little impatient,” Wise said.
The Gators finish up the regular season on Friday when they travel to Georgia.
