Picking up where they left off: Kentucky VB pulls off perfect weekend
There probably wasn’t a better way to draw up the weekend for No. 20 Kentucky volleyball, as they swept Auburn on both Saturday and Sunday. An inspired performance on Saturday carried over through the autumn night in Lexington and arrived once more inside of Memorial Coliseum on Sunday afternoon.
Kentucky is now 14-6 (9-2 SEC), still in second place in the league only behind No. 14 Florida. With the victory, the Wildcats have won nine of their last 10 and seem to be hitting the right strides at the right time of the year.
“We feel really good about this weekend, especially because it’s kind of like a growth piece to our journey at this point,” Senior outside hitter Adanna Rollins after the match. “I feel like at this point in the season you want to be where we’re at. So, I think we just got to keep building and now that we know what it feels like to stay steady the whole entire game, both back-to-back. I think we’re going to take it and work with it.”
Under 30 minutes
Kentucky was sporting the white uniforms today and got off to a fast start in the first set. Elise Goetzinger added her second kill to put the ‘Cats up 5-3 early. A 7-0 scoring run for UK forced Auburn into calling its first timeout of the match.
Out of the timeout, Kentucky kept its foot on the gas after Reagan Rutherford’s back-to-back kills extended the lead to 13-5. Azhani Tealer must’ve been jealous and had two back-to-back kills of her own just moments after. With the ‘Cats cruising, Goetzinger smashed home another booming kill to make it 21-11.
Rutherford’s kill cemented the first-set victory 25-13 for UK. She led all scorers with seven kills after the first set — off the bench if I may add.
Two was close, three wasn’t
Auburn was able to hang around for most of the second set, but Kentucky held them off. Tealer recorded a massive solo block to put the ‘Cats up 13-8 and the margin stayed around four to five points for the rest of the set.
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Goetzinger kept the good vibes going with a monster kill that hit off the head of one of the Auburn players. Haley Melby’s kill put Kentucky up 20-16 as part of a big weekend for the freshman.
“They don’t seem to be scared of the moment, they like to play, they’re very comfortable with competing. They don’t fear what’s happening, they just play. Sometimes that’s the beauty of freshman, they don’t really know, what they don’t know,” Head coach Craig Skinner said postgame on the play of Melby and Audrey Whitworth this weekend. “They go out there and compete and play, and both of them seem really comfortable in whatever role we’ve given them.”
Melby posted five kills while Whitworth recorded six digs in Sunday’s contest.
Rutherford’s second set-ending kill put UK up 2-0 going into the third set. Auburn was heavily outmatched in what was to be the final set of the afternoon.
It was a block party for Kentucky with the duo of Goetzinger and Rutherford proving to be a wall upfront. Tealer then grabbed another solo block to put the ‘Cats up 13-6, which was followed up by a kill of hers on the next play. Rollins’ 12th kill of the day sealed the deal and completed the second sweep of the weekend for the Wildcats.
Next up for Kentucky is a trip to Athens, GA for a midweek tilt against Georgia. A matchup between the ‘Cats and ‘Dogs is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 2 on the SEC Network+.
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