Kentucky Volleyball Clinches Eighth-Straight SEC Championship
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The No. 12 Kentucky Volleyball team clinched its eighth-straight Southeastern Conference Volleyball Championship on Sunday evening on Senior Day in Historic Memorial Coliseum, sweeping the Arkansas Razorbacks 3-0 (26-24, 25-20, 25-13) to move to 13-2 in conference play.
With one match remaining in the SEC season, Kentucky now is 13-2 with Florida and Texas both sitting at 11-3, one match back in the loss column with both Florida and Texas needing to play two more matches. Missouri, who entered action Sunday with a 10-3 league record, suffered a 3-1 loss to Mississippi State on Sunday, and has now been eliminated from title contention.
Kentucky will play at Missouri on Wednesday evening to conclude the regular season at 8 p.m. ET. A win over the Tigers would clinch the outright championship for Kentucky. The match will be shown live on SEC Network+ and the ESPN app from the Hearnes Center in Columbia, Missouri.
Kentucky had two players reach double figures scoring Sunday afternoon with Brooklyn DeLeye leading the way on 13 kills and Megan Wilson only one behind that at 12 kills on 22 swings with only one error in the match. Kentucky as a team hit a blistering .312 on the afternoon with a scorching .462 hitting percentage in the third set alone. The Wildcats defense held Arkansas to just .130 hitting for the match with no Razorback reaching double figures all afternoon.
UK was strong on defense all afternoon, making it tough on the Razorback offense with Molly Tuozzo gobbling up 19 digs to lead all players in the match and Emma Grome collecting 10 digs as well. DeLeye racked up her sixth double-double of the season with 10 digs as well, making it three Wildcats in double figures in the digs category. Brooke Bultema made her presence known defensively with five blocks and Megan Wilson also had four blocks on the afternoon to go alongside her 12 kills and pair of digs.
With the title, Kentucky now has eight-straight SEC titles, marking the longest streak of any power four institution in the nation of consecutive championships. It marks the 13th conference title in program history. Things in the first set were very tight the entire time with no team generating more than a three point lead the entire set. The Wildcats picked up set point at 24-22 which was followed by back-to-back points from Arkansas to push the Wildcats into a timeout at 24-24. UK then closed out the set with a kill by Brooklyn DeLeye and a block by Grome and Brooke Bultema to take a 1-0 lead.
In set two, Kentucky only trailed for three points the entire frame as the Wildcats went on a 5-0 run to take a 14-11 lead and pushed Arkansas into a timeout before the media timeout was scheduled to hit. Eleanor Beavin dropped in one of her three service errors to give the Wildcats a 23-19 cushion and on set point, Jordyn Dailey hammered an overpass from a serve of Beavin to lift Kentucky to a 25-20 second-set win and a two sets to none lead in the match.
With the third set in touch at 12-10, Kentucky ran off 11 of the next 12 points to take a 21-11 lead and arrived a championship point after Arkansas was stuffed at the net by the combination of Brooke Bultema and Brooklyn DeLeye. With Kentucky leading 24-13, the Wildcats won the final point of the match on an Arkansas service error and officially clinched a share of the SEC title.
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