‘A tough night for us.’ No. 12 Kentucky volleyball gets swept by No. 7 Texas.

The No. 12 Kentucky volleyball team was swept for the first time this season on Sunday afternoon — 25-21, 25-19, 25-17 — in an overwhelming loss to No. 7 Texas, the current SEC leader. The match, which pit the two programs against one another for the first time since the 2020 NCAA national championship , during which the Wildcats defeated the Longhorns 3-1.

“I’ll credit Texas for their ability today defensively,” UK coach Craig Skinner said. “It was a tough night for us offensively, and a lot of credit to Texas for their block and “D.” Too many unforced errors on our part. I think over 20 ... something like that. So unforced errors are on us, but we got to clean that up in practice, and we had a great practice yesterday, but a couple days prior to that, weren’t at the level that we need to beat great teams.”

The Wildcats (9-7, 3-2 SEC) committed 23 errors over the course of the match, and, following a tight first set that featured eight ties and four lead changes, struggled to keep up with the Longhorns’ lockdown defense. Texas, which recorded a season-high 14 blocks against UK, improved to 5-0 in conference play and 10-3 overall.

The Wildcats also recorded 11 service errors over the course of the match. Skinner spoke to the importance of converting consistently in transition, and said their inability to do so resulted in points left on the court.

“Well, the serves that we put on, we had a lot of opportunities when they passed the ball 10 feet off, 12 feet off,” Skinner said. “And we converted maybe a third of those, and we need to convert over half of those. And so, we had some errors. But again, you saw the the ability of the Texas attackers. If you don’t get them off the net, then it’s really hard to score. So we took the chances, had some opportunities, and didn’t convert in transition.”

Senior setter Emma Grome, who led all players with 29 assists, said the Wildcats’ roster has what it takes to be successful for the remainder of the season.

“I think there’s still a lot of potential for this team and a lot of areas that we can grow in,” Grome said. “We’ve seen glimpses of it here and there, of what we could be, but we haven’t been able to show that consistently. And I think it goes back to what Coach said, we have to show that every day in practice. We can’t expect things to show up in the game if we can’t consistently repeat that in practices every week.

“That’s always the goal is to be as good as you can be every day. But whether it’s, I don’t know, our preparation, our mentality, it might be different for each person for what it takes for them to show up the same way every day. But that’s just something individually and as a team, we need to keep figuring out.”

Sophomore outside hitter Brooklyn DeLeye lead all the Wildcats with 12 kills. She also recorded a team-high .152 hitting percentage.

Former Kentucky stars Madisen Skinner, who transferred to Texas ahead of the 2022 campaign, and Reagan Rutherford, who transferred to Texas ahead of this season, each delivered impressive performances. Rutherford recorded 10 kills and a .438 hitting percentage, while Skinner had eight kills, four blocks and a .208 hitting percentage.

When asked about his former players’ return to Memorial Coliseum, Skinner celebrated their contributions to his program.

“Madi and Reagan did great things for Kentucky when they were here,” Skinner said. “And we appreciate what they did for us, but today is a match of Kentucky versus Texas, so it’s hard to think about that stuff when you’re trying to give your team the best chance to be successful.”

Rutherford didn’t start, but the three-time national champion outside hitter received a warm welcome back from Big Blue Nation when her name was read aloud in the starting lineups.

The match took place in front of 4,384 fans at Memorial Coliseum — the sixth-largest crowd in program history.

“It’s always super fun to play in a packed house like that,” Grome said. “And you know, the crowd really does bring us a lot of energy, and it helps us in moments that we need it. And we try to build off of that, and it sucks that that many people came out to watch us, and we couldn’t pull out a win for them.”

Kentucky will next travel to Knoxville to face Tennessee at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday (Oct. 16).

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