Kentucky volleyball sweeps Creighton, punches Final Four ticket
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- Kentucky swept No. 3 Creighton 3-0, keyed by defense and a balanced offensive attack.
- Kentucky recorded 62 digs, dominated sideouts (75%) and out-killed Creighton 47-29.
- Coach Skinner praised team effort and mentality; UK will face Texas or Wisconsin Dec.18.
Ahead of No. 1 Kentucky’s 3-0 (25-19, 25-13, 25-18) sweep of No. 3 Creighton in the NCAA volleyball Elite Eight, head coach Craig Skinner mentioned that it wasn’t necessarily realistic to expect large scoring runs against a team like the Bluejays.
And yet, particularly in their dominant second set, the Wildcats did just that.
“We’re a really good volleyball team,” Skinner said after UK punched its Final Four ticket. “And everybody can play defense. And we play the game clean at a very high level, not just talent, but the effort and way we play as a group and team really applies a lot of pressure. And so, I didn’t think it would be possible to do that. But, you know, this team never ceases to amaze me with the level they can rise to at any given challenge.”
The match featured 17 ties, 10 of which came in the first set; several painstakingly-long rallies requiring zeroed-in focus; and a wire-to-wire victory in the second set.
Even when the Bluejays played their best volleyball of the night, hitting .111 in the third set, they never appeared to find their rhythm.
UK outside hitter Brooklyn DeLeye — named the Lexington Regional All-Tournament Most Outstanding Player — credited the Wildcats’ ability to keep Creighton at bay to their blocking schemes and went on to call the team’s performance “an all-around win for every aspect of the game.”
“Our main thing was to get their star attackers to kind of feel our presence up there,” DeLeye said. “And I think we did a good job of that. And I mean, we just the whole time were just chirping at the net and just communicating throughout the whole thing. I think it also helped that our serve got them out of system a lot. So it helped us from a blocking standpoint, (to) know where they’re going every time.”
The Wildcats combined for a total of eight blocks to Creighton’s nine but hit .263 to the Bluejays’ .066. Kentucky recorded 47 kills to Creighton’s 29 and posted a sideout percentage of 75% to Creighton’s 50.7%.
The most telling statistic of the night, however, was Kentucky’s 62 digs, as UK won the match with its defense; 17 digs for libero Molly Tuozzo, a combined 12 for freshmen Trinity Ward and Kassie O’Brien, 12 for DeLeye and 15 for outside hitter Eva Hudson. The latter two stats, Skinner said, has “got to be frustrating for another team.”
“It’s a mentality,” he said. “We have to establish a defensive mentality in practice. We hammer balls at them all the time. They’re flying all over the gym making plays. We have a couple rules, reasons why you don’t go for the ball. That would be out of bounds, you hear the whistle or some sort of danger is in the way. Outside of that, you better go for the ball.”
Hudson said that Skinner called upon the team “to be relentless all evening,” and create frustration for Creighton by digging up their “best shots.”
Kentucky recorded a match-low 13 digs in the first set, 14 in the second and 20 in the third.
“Especially the first few points of the first set, it was hard to find the rhythm with a game with so much pressure and a lot of high expectations,” Hudson said. “But I think in the second and third, we really found groove, our flow state, and we just capitalized on it.”
In addition to her 12 digs, DeLeye recorded 18 kills and hit .326. Hudson contributed an ace, 13 kills and hit .273. O’Brien tallied 40 assists. Sophomore middle blocker Kennedy Washington hit a team-high .500 and totaled five kills. Sophomore outside hitter Asia Thigpen posted eight kills and hit .429.
In front of 6,122 fans, Kentucky booked its second-ever trip to the Final Four — and first since its 2020 national championship — in a true team effort. And, per Skinner, “the crowd felt like they were on the edge of their seat the whole night.”
Outside of a strong-but-outnumbered, Creighton fan presence, Big Blue Nation — loud and passionate — hung on every point.
Despite the fact that the men’s basketball team had an evening matchup with border rival Indiana down the road, Kentucky recorded its season-high attendance total in its final match this season at Memorial Coliseum; UK also secured its 15th home win of the year, cementing a perfect home record for the 2025 campaign.
Bluejays head coach Brian Rosen joked about the similarities between Kentucky and Creighton in light of the packed house.
“Still sold this place out tonight,” Rosen said. “Which says a lot about a place I know, at one point, was a basketball school, maybe they’re a volleyball school now. We like to joke that we’re a volleyball school, too. So I think so many fans and communities are seeing how special this sport is.”
The Wildcats will face the winner of No. 1 Texas and No. 3 Wisconsin on Thursday at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri. The match will be broadcast on ESPN.
“We know that there’s going to be pressure,” Skinner said. “But we have got to enjoy this. I mean you do not get this chance very often in life, and so we’re not going to go in and, ‘Oh my God, we gotta play great on Thursday!’ From here until then. We’re going to enjoy the experience, enjoy this victory and enjoy the time we have together.
“And you know, I told the team in the locker room, it’s very rare you get to experience a group of people like this that is so bought into each other and the program, and so we have to enjoy that for as long as we can, and long as this season will take us.”
This story was originally published December 13, 2025 at 9:11 PM.
