Reagan Rutherford, left, celebrates one of her 13 kills with teammate Riah Walker. (UK Athletics Photo)
It was difficult enough that No. 6 Wisconsin, the defending national champion, swept Kentucky 25-23, 26-28, 25-18 Friday night in Memorial Coliseum in front of more than 3,000 fans. However, what troubled Kentucky coach Craig Skinner even more is why the Badgers were able to do that.
“Playing top 10 teams you have got to bring all phases (of your game). We had too many mistakes and not enough pressure with our serve,” said Skinner, who led UK to the 2020 national championship. “We gave them a lot of points in the first set when we had a chance to win it.”
However, here is why Skinner was really irked.
“I did not think we had a great week of practice and we’ve got to fix that,” the UK coach said.
Kentucky was coming off wins over top 25 teams Creighton and Southern California last weekend and Skinner admitted there was a “fine line” between going hard in practice and being fresh for matches. But the bottom line is he feels Kentucky has to “get better” at practice.
“You can’t duplicate how it feels playing good teams in practice. You have got to feel what the block looks like,” the UK coach said.
Reagan Rutherford led Kentucky with 13 kills and .500 against the Badgers, who out-blocked Kentucky 15-6 and often dominated the net. Rutherford had only one error on 24 swings. Emma Grome had 35 assists.
The Badgers were out-killed by Kentucky 43-39 but the blocking numbers made up for it with UW hitting .272 on the night and Kentucky hitting .231 with 19 errors to Wisconsin’s 11.
“Me and Emma have been working on our connection in practice,” Rutherford said. “They are a good team, good program. That’s why Craig schedules like this to prepare us.”
Rutherford admitted it was frustrating not to string points together when the Cats had a chance to win all three sets.
Skinner felt his team’s errors “snowballed” and inconsistent serving didn’t help. Kentucky had 11 service errors, including five by Grome, to nine for Wisconsin. The Badgers had six service aces to three for UK.
“We served well on the road last weekend. We did not serve great the first week (when UK lost to Marquette) and we did not serve great today,” Skinner said. “In practice you have to put it in game mode every single time and we did not do that (last week).”
Skinner felt poor passing inside the 10-foot line gave Wisconsin’s “big blockers a chance to set up and do what they wanted to do” most of the match.
“We are a physical team. When you get chances got to capitalize on opportunities you get, we didn’t and they did. We just have to execute better and not give up runs like we did,” the UK coach said. “You have got to execute when it is tied 24-24, 23-23, 25-25. Those are moments when you build your confidence.”
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One interesting note was the play of Wisconsin freshman libero Gulce Guctekin. She had never served in a match before the last weekend in August because liberos don’t serve in international play and she’s from Istanbul, Turkey.
She was a 5-5 bundle of energy and constant emotion. She celebrated after a lot of points and was always smiling and encouraging teammates. She had three service aces despite her lack of experience. She also never gave up on a point and kept several balls alive that Wisconsin turned into improbable points.
She was a five-year member of the Turkish Junior National team and was considered the best libero in Europe in the 2022 recruiting class.
