Vicky Graff Photo
It was a simple but accurate assessment by UCLA coach Alfie Reft after his team battled but still lost 3-1 (30-28, 25-16, 28-30, 25-17) to No. 2 Kentucky Friday in the NCAA Tournament second round.
Kentucky, hats off to them. They are the real deal,” said the UCLA coach.
The Cats certainly are as they now advance to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen and will again host one match, and hopefully two, in Memorial Coliseum as they continue their national title quest.
All-Americans Brooklyn DeLeye and Eva Hudson combined for 57 kills. They combined for 16 of UK’s 19 kills in the fourth set. DeLeye had a career-high 30 kills while Hudson had 27 and hit .463. Hudson also had 10 digs while DeLeye added eight digs.
“I think, physically, they’re playing on a different level. Regardless of where alignments were, I thought they were just playing at a height that you couldn’t touch and block,” Reft said about DeLeye and Hudson. “And then their vision and their tool kit, their ability to hit every angle record, is pretty impressive.
“We certainly scouted for that and seeing it in person was a little bit different. So kudos to them and to (UK coach) Craig (Skinner) for the work he’s done with them. I’ve seen both of their college careers, and I think they’re playing the best volleyball they’ve played. They’re getting better. We haven’t seen a lot of outsides that can do that to us.”
Kentucky hit .400 with sophomore Asia Thigpen having eight kills on 13 swings with no errors. She hit .615, a new career high.
Kassie O’Brien set a new career high with 60 assists on the night as she led the UK offense to a .400 night offensively with 13 digs for her 10th double-double of the season. On defense, it was Molly Tuozzo who had 15 digs, the most of any UK player.
Skinner credited UCLA for his team’s offensive balance.
“They were serving some bullets at these guys and it wasn’t that the passes were bad. [The serves] created a tough rhythm because some of them were low, some of them were high, some of them were off, and so it was really hard to get an offensive rhythm with a quick attack,” Skinner said.
“I think Kassie did a good job when she had her opportunities, but also, we needed to rely on [DeLeye and Hudson] to get some big time kills for us even though they knew there were going to be four hands in their face.”
DeLeye felt she was mainly responsible for the third set slipping away from UK after it had a lead late in the set.
“That was just a mistake on my part, and I knew I let my team down at that moment. I just knew that going into that fourth set, we were just not going to lose that one,” DeLeye said.
Hudson called it a “flow state” in the fourth set when she and DeLeye took over the match.
“It feels like everything you do just goes right, and, when you see the other one going off, it’s like, ‘Oh, well, that seems fun’. So that’s kind of my mentality,” Hudson said. “Also our back row has really consistently been giving us shots, calling them out. So when I can’t see the block, I just trust them and most of the time it works out.”
DeLeye felt UCLA would try to “pounce from the very beginning” but the Cats were not going to back down.
“I think we just knew that we had to respond and fight back because they weren’t going down without a fight,” DeLeye said.
Skinner said he knew that UCLA’s “high end is pretty ridiculous” and was glad his team could weather the storm in the first set and then come back from dropping the third set.
“I give these two (Hudson and DeLeye) a lot of credit for carrying the offensive load and bailing us out of some situations, which was huge. And Kassie was giving them hittable balls and our secondary setters also were a huge part of that match. We had 77 kills and 63 digs, and we needed every single one of them so, happy to be moving on,” Skinner said.
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Kentucky will now host the NCAA Regional round next weekend for the right to go to the NCAA Final Four. The matches will either be Thursday/Saturday or Friday/Sunday with the announcement coming from the NCAA after the completion of other second round matches Saturday night. Television assignments will be announced Saturday night.
All-session tickets for the NCAA Regional will go on sale Monday at 10 a.m. ET with single-session tickets on sale Tuesday at 10 a.m. ET on UKathletics.com. Fans can also check the Kentucky Volleyball social media page for more information on tickets.
Kentucky-UCLA Volleyball
Photos by Vicky Graff
2 Responses
I watch it instead the basketball game UCLA gave them hands full despite what the 4 game set score is. Im glad we got something to cheer for.
Skinner is a coach who knows how to build a dynasty. Love watching these bad ass ladies. Go VCats!
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