Cats are Looking Forward to Playing No. 1 Nebraska

Kentucky players enjoy interacting with fans. (Vicky Graff Photo)

Kentucky swept Ohio State in a four-set exhibition match Saturday and now turns its attention to matches against host Lipscomb in Nashville Saturday and then a showdown with No. 1 Nebraska on ABC-TV also in Nashville on Sunday.

Libero Molly Tuozzo said a big crowd of UK fans helped the Cats against Ohio State.

“We had a huge student section, so that was great to see there for our first game. I hope they keep coming back,” Tuozzo said on WLAP Sunday Morning Sports Talk. “But BBN is so amazing and they’re always supporting us no matter what or who we’re playing.”

Junior Molly Berezowitz said the team signed autographs for about an hour after Fan Day a week earlier and will do so after more matches during the season.

“Kentucky volleyball will post on social media if we are doing autographs,” she said.

The two juniors look forward to playing No. 1 Nebraska on  national TV and later playing the 2024 Final Four’s other three teams — Pittsburgh, Louisville and Penn State.

“(Coach) Craig (Skinner) does this every year. He schedules a really hard non-conference schedule, but I think we love it,”  Tuozzo, an all-SEC selection last season, said. “He always says, ‘You gotta play hard teams to beat hard teams.’ So I think it’s just really good to get that experience early on in the season. We’re never going to grow if we’re just playing smaller teams and just sweeping through them. So I think it’s really good to push ourselves at the beginning so that we can be our best at the end.”

Kentucky did that in 2020 when it won the national championship — the only volleyball national title by a SEC school at that time — and lost only to Florida during the season.