On Friday, the Michigan women’s volleyball team’s fan boat ran out of juice on the Florida bayou. Sinking ever deeper into the murky swamp brush of the Stephen C. O’Connell Center, the Wolverines were down two sets to nothing, against a pack of hungry Gators, chomping at the bit as they came into the third set.

As premonitions of the season's end crept over Michigan, the team came out swinging for its life. The Wolverines played with the unwavering conviction that their season was not about to end in Gainesville, Fla.

Senior outside hitter Alex Hunt fought back the hardest, racking 10 kills in the final set, including the tying game point, 25-25. But the Gators took a one-two chomp out of the drowning Wolverines to dash their hopes of reaching the NCAA Championship.

No. 17 Florida swept No. 22 Michigan in three sets in the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA Tournament.

“Florida played phenomenal,” said Michigan coach Mark Rosen. “In talking with some of their fans and coaches after the game, they said that’s the best game Florida played all year. After watching them fall to Illinois, it became clear that they had saved their best game for us.

“I don’t think we played poorly, I just think that we didn’t do a very good job of stopping them. I know we’re not happy to have finished our season, but I think we overcame a lot of adversity this year and found a way to get deep into the tournament. I’m proud of our team.”

In many ways, Rosen should be proud of his team’s performance. Walking away from No. 6 Stanford with the win — let alone getting all the way to the Sweet 16 — was far more than anyone could have expected from Michigan, a team that could barely manage to pull out three wins in the first half of Big Ten play back in October.

“Winning only three games in the first half of the season was something I’ve never experienced before with Michigan volleyball before,” Hunt said. “The whole thing was an identity crisis. We had a lot of doubt in ourselves. It was the first time our team ever looked at itself and said, ‘Wow, we are really bad.’

“I think we really turned everything around in the second half of the season. I’m really proud of how it all came together, and I’m thankful for the people that stuck by us through our rough and dark times. They are the one’s who helped us flip it and get us to the Sweet 16, something no one thought we’d be able to accomplish.”

Senior middle blocker Courtney Fletcher, who, like many of her teammates, has devoted her entire life to this sport, feels the engulfing void of a world without volleyball. It’s a reality she knew would one day come for her, like it comes for every athlete, but its definitive yet freeing nature is indescribable to someone who hasn't experienced it first hand.

“This whole process has been really disorienting,” Fletcher said. “I don’t have anything left now. I don’t have practice, there’s nothing I can change about my performance. It’s over. But at the same time, I feel like I’ve had a great career, and I have no regrets. It’s been a bittersweet ride. It wasn’t always easy, it wasn’t always fun, but it’s made me a better person overall. I’ve made some great friends, played some great volleyball, but now it’s time for the next chapter.”

As the team traded in its fan boat for a more suitable form of transportation back to Ann Arbor, the image of that final Florida kill hung heavy in the air. But that wasn’t all the seniors were thinking about. Thoughts stretched as far back as the first kills of their careers and spanned as far forward as the next three years — imagining what lies in store for teammates like freshman setter Lexi Dannemiller and all the new hitters she’ll be setting for in the coming seasons.

Rosen, a little more focused on the here-and-now, kept his introspections confined to this season.

“We had major doubts about that season during that slump in mid-October when we were really struggling,” Rosen said. “It’s hard to evaluate your team when you’re right in the middle of it all, but looking back at some of the choices our players made to continue to fight and push through it, I really am proud of them all.”