Vicky Graff Photo
The fans turned out hoping to see a historic upset of two-time defending national champion Texas — which returned five starters off its 2023 national title team — but the No. 7 Longhorns showed why they should be a serious contender for another title.
Texas swept No. 12 Kentucky 3-0 (25-21, 25-19, 25-17) Sunday at Memorial Coliseum in front of 4,834 fans, the sixth-largest crowd in program history.
The Longhorns (10-3, 5-0 SEC) were just better than the scrappy Wildcats. Texas out blocked UK in a big way with 14 blocks compared to UK’s seven. Texas hit a respectable .281 but held UK to just .089 hitting that included a season-high 23 attack errors in a three- or four-set match.
Brooklyn DeLeye had 12 kills with three digs and one block. Emma Grome had 29 assists to stop her streak of 30 or more assists at 11 due to UK being swept for the first time this season. Libero Molly Tuozzo had 12 digs for Kentucky (9-7, 3-2 SEC) which now starts a five-match road trip beginning at Tennessee Wednesday.
“It was a tough night offensively but credit Texas,” Kentucky coach Craig Skinner said. “We had too many unforced errors. We have to clean that up in practice. We had a great practice yesterday but a couple of days prior we were not at the level we need to be.”
Grome, a senior All-American, still sees a “lot of potential and areas to grow” for Kentucky.
“We have seen glimpses of what it could be. We just are not able to show it consistently,” Grome said. “We have to show that every day in practice. We cannot expect it to show up in games if we don’t practice consistently.”
Why has consistency been so hard to find?
“It’s always the goal to be as good as you can be every day,” Grome said. “I don’t know if it is our preparation or what. The mentality is different for each person. But it is something individually that we need to figure out.”
Grome was disappointed the Cats could not deliver a win for the fans she described as “awesome” when asked about the crowd.
“It’s always super fun to play in a packed house. The crowd does bring energy and we try to build off that,” Grome said. “It sucks that so many came out to watch us and we could not pull out a win.”
Kentucky-Texas Volleyball
Photos by Vicky Graff
