Kentucky players celebrated during Thursday’s NCAA Tournament win over Cleveland State. (UK Athletics Photo)
Not only has Kentucky volleyball won eight straight Southeastern Conference championships, but coach Craig Skinner’s team has now won a first-round NCAA Tournament game for the eighth straight year.
Kentucky beat Cleveland State 3-0 (25-15, 25-14, 25-16) Thursday night in Memorial Coliseum and will face Minnesota tonight at 7 for a spot in next weekend’s NCAA Regional. Minnesota beat Western Kentucky 3-1 in the first match Thursday.
Kentucky jumped in front 9-2 in the first set and hit .766 early behind six points by sophomore Brooklyn DeLeye, the SEC Player of the Year. DeLeye finished the match with 15 kills while Erin Lamb had 10. Emma Grimace had 33 assists in the sweep.
“I think we just knew that we had to jump from the start. You can’t really start a game off coming in soft. I mean, we knew they were going to come out swinging, and that’s kind of what they did, but I think we did a really good job of stopping that and just playing our game and not letting the tournament really affect us,” DeLeye said about the fast start.
Cleveland State coach Chuck Voss knew his team played well even though it got swept.
“Kentucky is an amazing team and they just do things that we don’t see. They’re taking things from the men’s game and implementing them at a very high level. I’ll be rooting for those guys moving forward,” Voss said.
“Their speed, athleticism. Defensively, the pursuit, I bet there were swings that (outside hitter) Liberty (Torres) or other attackers had balls that we thought were going down, and all the sudden it (the ball) just popped up. The way that they just reset and put pressure right back on you in those moments is just impressive.”
Skinner was pleased with his team’s play and not overly concerned about having to play on consecutive nights.
“We’ve done a good job all season long of preparing for the next day and today is super important but also preparing by what we do physically in the gym and how we make sure we’re engaging our effort and loads to prepare us to play back-to-back days,” Skinner said. “It’s not easy for both Minnesota and us, but these guys have been looking forward to this moment all season long.”
Kentucky held the Vikings to a .114 hitting percentage as its back-line defense continued its impressive play led by 12 digs from sophomore libero Molly Tuozzo.
“It starts with the serving pressure. They run a little bit slower tempo balls so it took us a little bit of time to catch the rhythm for blocking and when to be at the top for our jumps,” the UK coach said. “Once we got that it really limited their range of attack and then the back part that we have it’s really hard for the ball to hit the floor so it is really a combination of all three phases there.”
Senior Erin Lamb, who had 10 kills, was one of five UK players with a service ace (DeLeye led the way with three).
“We knew they were a good passing team, and their libero is very good, so we knew that we would have to bring it, and they have a couple of heavy arms, so we knew that serving was going to be key,” Lamb said. “We’ve been working on it really hard over the whole season, and just kind of sticking to what we do, knowing that we can apply pressure and take care of business.”
