Four in a row.

That’s the number of consecutive losses the Georgia volleyball team has suffered in the past nine days following its latest performance against the Florida Gators.

The No. 9-ranked Gators came into Athens on the back-end of a four-game road trip that yielded a sweep at the hands of the LSU Tigers and seemed to be a vulnerable opponent for a Georgia team that has played well against stellar competition so far in 2009.

Unfortunately for the Bulldogs (11-9, 2-7 SEC), Florida (14-3, 8-2 SEC) had revenge on its mind after falling to Georgia for the first time in 18 years last season and they wasted no time returning to the win column by sweeping Georgia in straight sets.

“Credit goes to Florida, certainly having to face the result of last year, and being able to be more mature with their focus this year and not let their heads go back to a year ago with basically the same team,” head coach Joel McCartney said. “Our hats off to them and they certainly are deserving of their top-10 ranking in the country.”

After trailing 19-15 in the opening set, Georgia managed to pull within a point of the Gators at 21-20 before ultimately falling 25-22.

The Bulldogs never trailed by more than four points during the first set and posted an impressive .448 hitting percentage thanks to a team-high six kills from redshirt freshman outside hitter Briana Bahr.

“We had a fantastic start to this match, and it looked like it was going to be a match that we had a shot of being in to win,” McCartney said. “But as the length of this match grew, it became clear that we were losing a little bit of confidence as we stacked up against them.”

However, Georgia’s defense was unable to slow down the Florida offensive attack despite a set-high four digs from sophomore libero Carla Tietz as the Gators posted a .457 hitting percentage of their own.

Georgia got out to an early lead in the second set but lost it quickly as the Gators worked with a comfortable lead for the majority of the set before putting the Bulldogs away 25-16.

As their .000 set hitting percentage would indicate, the Bulldogs were unable to produce any scoring opportunities as they headed into halftime in a 2-0 hole.

Florida sophomore Kelly Murphy led the way with seven second-set kills as the Gators hit at a .219 clip and added four team blocks that stifled the Georgia offense.

The third and final set was the least competitive as Georgia was completely dominated on both ends of the court, losing 25-11.

Florida never trailed in the third set and posted a stellar .429 hitting percentage to keep pace with Kentucky in the SEC eastern division standings.

Murphy proved to be a difference maker for Florida as Georgia was unable to counteract her match-high 15 kills and 16 assists.

As far as the positives that can be taken from this match, McCartney was pleased with one aspect of his team’s performance.

“The energy and the focus that we brought into the match . we were pretty comfortable from the very start,” McCartney said. “We were in our system really well in the first half of this match. We need to learn how to move on when things don’t go our way and we’ll continue to press that in practice.”