‘Success is fragile.’ Kentucky volleyball learns, but loses against nation’s best teams.
Under head coach Craig Skinner, the Kentucky volleyball program has never shied away from scheduling top-level opponents in non-conference play.
Skinner has praised these early-season tests as opportunities for Kentucky to gain big-match experience against the nation’s best teams, while also providing chances for UK to boost its résumé and RPI with an eye toward the NCAA Tournament.
This year, the Wildcats will rely more on the former than the latter when assessing its non-conference season.
UK’s non-conference season culminated with four home matches in 10 days inside Memorial Coliseum in Lexington, including marquee matchups against No. 2 Louisville, No. 3 Nebraska and No. 6 Wisconsin (current rankings were released Monday).
Kentucky lost in straight sets to Wisconsin on Sept. 9, in five sets against Louisville on Wednesday (in a match broadcast on ESPN) and again in straight sets Sunday afternoon against Nebraska (in a match broadcast on ESPN2).
“Success is fragile. You’ve got opportunities and you give yourself chances in sets and you’ve got to figure out a way to close the deal,” Skinner said Sunday after the loss to Nebraska, which came in front of a season-high crowd of 3,933 people.
“We don’t find that out when we’re not in these matches. Typically, when you’re athletically talented with the other team, it doesn’t just come down to physical ability. It comes down to intangibles and communication and execution and those types of things.”
Sunday’s defeat came by scores of 27-25, 25-20 and 25-16.
These results leave No. 15 Kentucky (5-4) with two ranked wins (over Creighton and Southern California) and three ranked losses on its ledger entering conference play.
When looking at Kentucky’s shortcomings in its recent, ranked defeats to Wisconsin, Louisville and Nebraska, a common theme exists in UK’s inability to consistently record kills.
In the defeats to the Badgers, Cardinals and Cornhuskers, the Wildcats averaged a 20.1% attack rate, with an average of 13.4 kills and six attacking errors per set.
“We’re certainly killing the ball enough (but) we’re making too many errors,” Skinner said. “We have too many unforced errors ... we need to be more efficient. When it’s not a killing situation, stressing the defense, putting pressure on the defense, giving ourselves a chance to win it defensively and then we’ve got to block better.”
One of the main offseason and early-season tasks for Skinner and the UK program has been to replace the offensive production vacated by the losses of Alli Stumler (graduation) and Madi Skinner (transfer to Texas).
So far, junior opposite Reagan Rutherford and senior outside hitter Adanna Rollins are the only two UK players to average more than three kills per set.
“We work hard in practice, just trying to find a way to score ... it takes a whole team to do that,” said Rutherford, who has led UK in kills in seven of nine matches this season.
While Kentucky was unable to win any of its three signature non-conference home matches — all of which were against Final Four participants from the 2021 NCAA Tournament — fans flocked to Memorial Coliseum for the matchups.
A total of 10,782 people watched the three matches.
The 3,756 people who watched Kentucky play Louisville marked the largest crowd since 2017 at Memorial Coliseum, only to be surpassed by Sunday’s crowd against Nebraska, which brought significant traveling support.
Additionally, all three matches were broadcast live on ESPN networks, with the Louisville and Nebraska matches also having radio broadcasts on the UK Sports Network.
Lexington native, daughter of UK basketball star, returns
Sunday marked a return home for a former Lexington high school volleyball star, who also happens to be the daughter of a former UK men’s basketball standout.
Kaitlyn Hord is the daughter of Derrick Hord, who is ranked 38th on UK’s men’s basketball all-time scoring list and was an NBA Draft pick in 1983.
The younger Hord made a name for herself as a volleyball star at Lexington’s Henry Clay High School, before enjoying a distinguished career at Penn State.
Hord earned All-America honors in all four seasons she spent at Penn State, but transferred to Nebraska during the offseason.
Sunday’s match was the first time Hord has played a match in Lexington since her high school days.
Hord — who was recruited by Kentucky both in high school and in the offseason as a graduate transfer — finished Sunday’s match with five kills, tied for the third-most among all Cornhuskers.
SEC play up next
Kentucky has 18 matches left in the regular season, all of which are in the Southeastern Conference.
UK’s conference schedule begins this weekend with home matches against LSU on Saturday (2 p.m.) and Sunday (noon) inside Memorial Coliseum.
The Wildcats have won at least a share of the SEC championship in each of the last five seasons.
UK won outright SEC titles in 2018, 2020 and 2021, and shared the league crown with Florida in 2017 and 2019.
Kentucky was picked to win the SEC again this season in the SEC Preseason Coaches’ Poll.
This story was originally published September 19, 2022 at 7:40 AM.
