Grome Leads 3-Seeded Kentucky Past Cleveland State Into Second Round of NCAA Tournament

Thanks to a balanced evening offensively off the hands of senior setter Emma Grome, 3-seeded Kentucky coasted into the second round of the NCAA Tournament Thursday night with a 3-0 sweep of visiting Cleveland State (25-15, 25-14, 25-16) inside Historic Memorial Coliseum.

Grome dished out a match-high 33 assists as the reigning SEC Setter and Player of the Week steered the Kentucky offense to a .391 hitting clip. Five Wildcats totaled four or more kills in the match, led by outside hitter Brooklyn DeLeye. The sophomore totaled a match-high 15 kills on a blistering .481 clip to go along with three aces and a block.

Erin Lamb was the other Wildcat to eclipse double figures as she found the floor with 10 kills on only 18 swings with two errors, good for a .444 slugging percentage. Megan Wilson added eight terminations of her own, Jordyn Dailey had seven, and Brooke Bultema finished with four.

Following the match, UK head coach Craig Skinner was pleased with his team’s effort in all facets of the game.

“Thought our team did a good job of producing offensively and holding Cleveland State’s attackers to a low percentage,” Skinner said. “So happy to keep moving.”

Defensively the Cats stifled Cleveland State as the Vikings totaled just 25 kills through three sets of play on .114 hitting. Molly Tuozzo anchored the back line with 12 digs and seven assists. Eleanor Beavin added nine digs of her own, Grome had eight, DeLeye picked up five and Wilson and Dailey each had three.

With the win, Kentucky improves to 21-7 on the season and will take on Minnesota in the second round of the NCAA Tournament Friday night after the Gophers knocked off Western Kentucky in four sets earlier Thursday.

Skinner cited Minnesota’s physicality as a key factor in the matchup with the Gophers and their ability to string points together.

“They’re a good team. They’ve had some great wins this year. They’ve got some arms that hit the ball extremely hard. They’ll put some tough serves on us. They’re a team of streaks- they score a lot of points in a row, they can give up some points. But I think that has been shown all day today in the NCAA Tournament- there’s a lot of runs of points. Physical, bring a lot of heat, and play hard so it’ll be a fun match.”

First serve against the Gophers is set for 7:00 pm ET and will be broadcast live on ESPN+.