Kentucky Sweep “was close to perfect”

Vicky Graff Photo

Can Kentucky play any better than it did Friday night in a 25-18, 25-22, 25-17 sweep of Baylor in the second round of the NCAA Tournament?

“I mean volleyball is a game of errors, so I mean we can never play perfect, but I think that is as close as perfect as it gets,” said senior Reagan Rutherford. “We played amazing. There are some things we can clean up defensively and communicate but yeah, it was a really fun night and it was close to perfect in my opinion.” 

Rutherford had 14 kills and hit an amazing .632 in the match while also adding three digs, two blocks and two service aces. But as good as her hitting percentage was, it was not the best on the team. Azhani Tealer, another senior, hit .733 with 11 kills.

If that’s not impressive enough, another senior — Elise Goetzinger — hit .600 with seven kills. Freshman Brooklyn DeLeye added 13 kills, 10 digs and three blocks while hitting .524. As a team, UK hit .500 against a big, physical team that had no answers for coach Craig Skinner’s team thanks in large part to 45 assists from setter Emily Grome.

Baylor coach Ryan McGuyre didn’t like losing but he appreciated the beauty of what Kentucky’s offense did.

“I hope that they win the rest and go all the way through (for a national championship),” he said. “I think what they’ve done offensively this year is kind of what we’ve aspired to be. I think offensively what they are is at a championship level.

“I thought we were hanging around offensively at times, like we didn’t error ourselves out with the offense, 10 errors for them and 11 for us, but obviously they’re much more terminal. And, you know, our serves kept us in it, but then their serves kind of pulled it away.”

Skinner didn’t deny that talent plays a major role in the way Kentucky terminated points against Baylor.

“We have all five attackers that can score at any given moment. Emma’s really good at distributing the ball to the right people at the right time. Handling serve is important,” Skinner said.

He also credited assistant coaches Ben Josephson and Madison Lilley for some changes that helped the offense.

“Just having some things in your back pocket to be able to try and expose a big, physical team like Baylor. But it’s a whole team effort – so there’s the preparation piece but then there’s the execution piece under pressure but having a lot of arms is helpful,” Skinner said.

Baylor played an impressive out of conference schedule as well as a Big 12 schedule. However, Baylor’s Allie Sczech said her team had trouble saying in “squirrels rallies that were a little crazier than normal” against Kentucky.  

“But I would say honestly, overall, the offense was just really effective on their side of the net. I think that just made it tough for us to score and tougher for us to defend,” Sczech said.

Tealer said the UK seniors knew Friday could be the end of their season and careers.

“I think emotions were really high all day and just preparing for a game like this knowing it could be your last, but us three seniors, we all locked in and made sure we had the team ready to go,” Tealer said. “I think it showed in the way we played today and yeah we were ready for anything they threw at us and I think we played really well.” 

Kentucky advances to the regional next week at a location that has yet to be determined. Kentucky will face the winner of Saturday’s Arkansas-TCU match in the third round. Kentucky has two wins over Arkansas this season.

Nebraska is the top seed in the region and plays Missouri, another team UK beat, tonight. If the Huskers win, they will advance to face Georgia Tech and host next week’s Sweet 16 and Elite Eight. If Nebraska loses to Missouri, Kentucky would become the host site.