‘Big-girl volleyball.’ Multidimensional offense leads UK to Elite Eight berth
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky deployed multidimensional offense and middle dominance to sweep Cal Poly.
- Setter Kassie O’Brien had 31 assists as Kentucky hit .419 in the sweep.
- Kentucky now faces Creighton in Elite Eight, expecting a tight, execution-driven match.
Sustained success — particularly in the face of a brutal nonconference slate, or a gauntlet of a league like the Southeastern Conference — is difficult to achieve.
But as No. 1 Kentucky volleyball closed out the third set of its 3-0 (25-18, 25-19, 25-7) NCAA Tournament Regional Semifinal sweep of a talented Cal Poly squad Thursday afternoon, the Wildcats looked every bit like a team that hasn’t lost a match since September.
When it comes to strategy, there’s not much head coach Craig Skinner and his team haven’t faced throughout a season that’s seen an undefeated SEC schedule and a consequent ninth consecutive SEC title, as well as an SEC Tournament championship and a top-line seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Thursday’s victory over Cal Poly, however, further emphasized one of the reasons Kentucky has racked up 28 wins and earned a date with No. 3 Creighton in Saturday’s Regional Final match — multidimensional play, with defensive and scoring threats all over the floor.
“I think the pressure was really good,” Skinner said. “And the offensive connection between Kassie (O’Brien) and Lizzie (Carr) and Kennedy (Washington) and our middles really helped spread the offense so that we were multidimensional, which I think caused problems.”
Carr, who arrived as a transfer from Purdue in January, delivered 11 kills and six blocks in the match while hitting .667. The 6-foot-6 middle blocker doesn’t get as much attention as her fellow former Boilermaker, SEC Player of the Year Eva Hudson, or dominant junior Brooklyn DeLeye, but Carr was indelible in creating separation for her team.
“We know that a lot of teams are going to draw a lot of attention to Brooklyn and Eva,” Carr said. “And so we have to find a way to score from other portions of the court. And tonight, Kassie was able to put me and Kennedy in really good positions, and then we would score from the backside as well. So we were just able to score from other avenues of the court, which is going to be really important going forward.”
Skinner said it wasn’t necessarily at the heart of the game,plan to go to the middle, but, as the old adage says, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
“Establishing the middle is important in any match,” Skinner said. “But as it continued to go very well, there was no reason to go away from it. And we were continuing to score, gotta keep going. So Kassie did a really good job of finding them both in serve/receive and in transition.”
Freshman setter O’Brien, who’s on record saying she loves to set the middle, recorded 31 assists during the match as the Wildcats cruised to a .419 hitting percentage across the three sets. Carr and Washington (18 combined kills) even combined for more kills than the duo of Hudson (9) and DeLeye (8), a rare occurrence for Kentucky’s All-America outside hitter lineup.
“Each day in practice, it’s something that we want to work on,” O’Brien said. “And it just continues to grow. And so tonight, I don’t know, we were just kind of feeling it, and our passers did a great job to put us in a good position, in order for me to do it to Lizzie, and then to Kenny too. But I think being able to balance the difference between the two hitters has been a challenge, but, you know, they do a great job of communicating with me, and we connect really well.”
As Kentucky continues on in hopes of its second-ever national championship, and first since 2020, Skinner said there will be lessons that come out of the team’s sweep of Cal Poly but that it’s not realistic to expect to continue to dominate in a manner similar to the Wildcats’ error-free, lights-out third set.
“The execution was awesome,” Skinner said. “I’m probably not going to take a whole lot from it, only because the chances of you doing that against any team is pretty slim. But just proud of the no errors. And you know, the execution there was impressive. And it came from multiple people, not just a couple. But Creighton is going to cause a lot of issues for us.”
The Bluejays defeated No. 2 Arizona State, 3-1 (26-24, 19-25, 25-13, 25-18) in Memorial Coliseum’s earlier match Thursday. Creighton put three athletes on the AVCA Division I West Region First Team announced earlier this week: setter Annalea Maeder, outside hitter Ava Martin and middle blocker Kiara Reinhardt. The seniors helped lead the Bluejays to their second straight Elite Eight and extend their own impressive win streak to 23 consecutive victories.
“I don’t think they’re a team you score in bunches (against),” Skinner said. “You’re probably not gonna score four or five points in a row. You’re gonna have to side out, maybe get one or two, and keep siding out. It’s a high-level game against a high-level team, and so it’s big-girl volleyball, and you’ve got to execute and score, maybe score a point here and there. And just stay locked in the whole time because it’s going to be a battle.”
No. 1 Kentucky and No. 3 Creighton will face off in the Lexington Regional Final at 5 p.m. Saturday in Memorial Coliseum. The game will air on ESPN2.
This story was originally published December 11, 2025 at 7:43 PM.
