Last weekend the Tigers were able to get LSU coach Fran Flory her 300th career victory. Friday night the Tigers were trying to help Flory do something she has yet to do at LSU – beat Florida.The Tigers put up a battle, but fell just points short to the No. 8 Gators, 3-2 (25-19, 24-26, 32-30, 23-25, 9-15).”Florida proved that Florida is the No. 8 team in the country,” Flory said. “They were supposed to win, and they played like they were supposed to win when their backs were against the wall.”The Tigers (11-7, 6-5) were 7-0 on the season after winning the first set coming into tonight’s match.Flory said the crowd support was a big factor in the Tigers’ first set victory.”The fans were awesome,” she said. “Our team coming out in game one and feeling the electricity in the building and feeling the crowd support, we fed off that in set one and it carried us through.The Tigers came out to a slow start in the second set, going down 0-5 before rallying to tie the score at 20. Flory said the slow start was due in part to Florida coach Mary Wise’s rotation changing.”[Coach Wise] changed the rotation on us, so we had to adjust,” Flory said. “They were able to exploit some weaknesses with our blocking, and we didn’t serve well enough to keep them out of their offense in those rotations where they could really affect us with our offense against their block.”In both the second and fourth sets, the Tigers had to battle from behind to try and win. Both times, the Tigers fell just two points short.”When you are going to beat someone, you have to be aggressive and you have to make plays,” Flory said. “You can’t try to create too much. We tried too hard at certain times. We tried to be too good, instead of doing what we do.”Flory said that Florida’s depth was a key factor in the match.”Florida’s depth helped them out,” she said. “Our lack of depth killed us. It’s amazing that we were as close as we were with our outsides hitting negative [percentage].Junior outside hitter Brittnee Cooper led the way for the Tigers offensively, hitting at a .326 clip with 24 kills.”We had no answer for Cooper,” Wise said. “She was an All-American tonight.”Junior setter Samantha Dabbs had 43 assists for the Tigers, along with 9 kills and 9 digs. Senior libero Elena Martinez had 23 digs in the match.”With Martinez on the court, LSU can play with anybody in the country because of her ability to dig balls,” Wise said. “They looked like a team that has really hit their stride in terms of their offensive tempo.”Flory hopes that the match will be a confidence booster heading into Sunday’s 1:30 p.m. match against South Carolina.”This team is still a team that is building,” Flory said. “We are still getting better. The fact that we were able to have a chance to beat them tonight should be a confidence booster.”—-Contact Andy Schwehm at [email protected]