Aug. 28, 1999
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The University of Kentucky volleyball team opened its season on Saturday afternoon with the annual “Blue and White Scrimmage, ” an intra-squad match in Memorial Coliseum. The match gave the Wildcats an early chance to play in front of their home fans before the season and home opener on September 1st against Eastern Kentucky.
The match consisted of five games with many of the players switching teams after each game. The Blue team won the match 3-2 with the games going 9-15, 9-15, 15-4, 15-11, 15-13.
Seniors Katie Eiserman and Terri Crabb starred for the Wildcats as Eiserman totaled 19 kills while Crabb had a total of 46 assists. Freshman Kristen Batt got her UK career off to a fast start with 14 kills and 17 digs. Fellow frosh Aleisha Craven also had 17 digs.
“Today was a good chance for the freshman to work through some jitters,” said Head Coach Jona Braden. “They all made some good digs on balls, but still need to improve on directing the ball to a specific target in order to put their teammates in a position to make a play.”
In the beginning of the match it was obvious to even the untrained eye that this scrimmage marked the Cats’ first public appearance this season. In the first game the teams combined for 15 hitting errors, 4 service errors and 3 service receiving errors while overall playing tentatively.
“We were tipping too many balls early in the match, generally not making solid contact,” said Braden. “After that first game we talked to our players about focusing on their aggressive-ness and improving their ball control off of service receptions. We were impressed with the way that they addressed the ideas we had touched on and improved their play throughout the match. We’d just like to see them start with a higher level of play at the beginning of the match and sustain it.”
The Cats will have three days of practice before they lace ’em up for real on Wednesday. The players will use those last three days to focus on their serving, transition game from defense to offense and ball control. Wednesday’s game will begin at 7 p.m. in Memorial Coliseum.
