The University of Tennessee women's volleyball team was involved in a sweep for the seventh straight match Friday night.

Unfortunately for the Lady Vols, they were on the losing end for the first time.

No. 12 Florida won 25-23, 25-18 and 25-23 at Thompson-Boling Arena to snap Tennessee's nine-match winning streak.

According to Tennessee coach Rob Patrick, the Lady Vols contributed nearly as much to the loss as did tradition-rich Florida.

"Florida presents a huge challenge on the court and we did not step up to the challenge," he said. "The only thing I was disappointed in was that we didn't compete as well as we had been.

"We were making so many errors we don't normally make."

Senior Mindy Flynn agreed.

"Florida is a great team, but we didn't follow the game plan like we should have," said Flynn, who led UT with 10 kills. "We didn't block well and didn't play good defense."

In the first set, Florida (21-2, 15-1 SEC) had gone out to a 13-12 lead when junior Kylie Marshall leaped far off the court to keep the ball in play.

The Lady Vols (19-9, 12-5) lost the point, but managed to win back a little momentum. Although Florida pulled ahead initially, Tennessee came back to take a 22-20 lead.

Florida eventually won that set, and also took the second set in a much easier fashion.

In the third set, a determined Tennessee went ahead 16-11, but Florida slowly mounted a comeback. The Gators managed to pull even at 21 before prevailing by two points.

Kristy Jaeckel, Kelly Murphy, and Colleen Ward each had double-digit kills for Florida. Nikki Fowler and Chloe Goldman had 15 and 14 digs, respectively, for Tennessee.

While Patrick was disappointed with the outcome, he was pleased with the crowd of 1,097, the largest of the year and the fourth-largest in UT women's volleyball history.

"The crowd was fantastic," he said. "That was one of the things that disappointed me. We had a tremendous crowd and it was a match that should have gone longer."

The Lady Vols close out their home schedule against South Carolina on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. It's Senior Day for Flynn, Milan Clarke and Lauren LaFlamme.

For Flynn, the match will be an opportunity for redemption as well as remembrance.

"Being a senior and my last game in Knoxville, it will be a huge game to come back and win, especially after tonight," she said.

© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.