Kentucky puts up a fight, but Washington too much in NCAA Sweet 16 matchup
For the second year in a row a victory-filled season for the University of Kentucky volleyball team came to an end in the Sweet 16.
The Wildcats put up a fight but were defeated by Washington 3-1 (25-16, 26-24, 15-25, 25-22) in the regional semifinals of the NCAA Tournament at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, on Friday afternoon. Kentucky finished with a record of 25-7 and went 16-2 in the Southeastern Conference, winning the league championship for the third straight season.
Kentucky earned the No. 9 overall seed and in the first two rounds swept Southeast Missouri and Michigan before running into the eighth-seeded Huskies.
Washington jumped out to a 10-4 lead in the first set and held the Cats at bay to take a 1-0 lead in the match. Trailing 24-21 in set two, UK fought off three straight set points to draw even. The Cats appeared to again knot it at 25-25 on a block at the net, but after a challenge by Huskies Coach Keegan Cook, officials went to the replay monitor. They reversed their call, ruling the ball hit the out-of-bounds antennae after touching a UK player, and awarded the set-clinching point to Washington.
The Cats dominated the third set, at one point putting together a 6-0 run to go up 18-8. In the fourth set the teams battled back-and-forth, neither leading by more than three. With UK up 21-20, Washington went on a 4-0 run, thanks in part to consecutive errors by the Wildcats, to snatch momentum. The Huskies clinched the match on the fifth kill by sophomore Ella May Powell, who also had 37 assists.
Kentucky senior Leah Edmond closed out her legendary college career with another big-time performance, leading the Wildcats with 17 kills and adding seven digs. After the loss, in a video posted to the official NCAA Volleyball Twitter account, the two-time SEC Player of the Year read a letter she wrote to the sport of volleyball.
“Thank you for being a constant when I was unsure what would happen next,” Edmond said. “I knew with volleyball I’d never have to worry about finding friends because I always had teammates. Thank you for giving me a platform to be my true self.
“Down the road when I look back at all my memories from this time it won’t be the championships or the records that I remember, but the experiences and memories that I made with my teammates and coaches.”
Edmond, who played for Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Lexington, was named the SEC Player of the Year each of the last two seasons. She’s one of four seniors who’ll graduate next spring. The others are Caitlyn Cooper, Kylie Schmaltz and Leah Meyer, who joined the program this season as a graduate student after spending three years at Duke.
This story was originally published December 13, 2019 at 7:10 PM.
