Carr's Career High Propels Cats on Friday

So far in 2025, the Kentucky volleyball offense has largely run through outside hitters Brooklyn DeLeye and Eva Hudson. But in Friday night’s sweep over Georgia, the Cats turned to someone else.

Junior middle blocker Lizzie Carr had perhaps the best match of her career, notching a career-high 13 kills while adding seven block assists. In addition, she hit a sparkling .611 in Friday’s match. UK head coach Craig Skinner liked what he saw from Carr on Friday.

“I think sometimes it’s hard when you win pretty easily in the first set to lose concentration,” Skinner said. “We did not do that and I think Lizzie was a big part of that.”

Carr got started early in the match, registering four of UK’s first five kills, including three in a row that helped the Cats build a 7-1 lead early. Carr had five total kills in the first set, along with three block assists. Carr thinks she may very well have been in “the zone”.

“We always talk about getting to that flow state and I feel like we were in that as a team tonight,” Carr said. “It was really cool to just watch us all play.”

Skinner noted how Carr started fast and continued her solid play throughout the match.

“Being involved in almost every single play of the first set, scoring almost a full set of points on her own with seven blocks and 13 kills,” Skinner said.

While DeLeye and Hudson did their thing with 10 and 12 kills respectively, Skinner liked how setter Kassie O’Brien was able to get Carr involved.

“If she’s going to score like that, yes, it’s the game plan,” Skinner said. “We’ve always been working to distribute and get more offensive production from our middles and if it’s working, don’t stop.”

Carr knows that the work she and her teammates put in during practice is really paying off in matches.

“We’ve been working a lot on our connections with the setters, both Ava (Sarafa) and Kassie, just across the board,” Carr said. “Everything was flowing and it worked really well and Kassie was getting me in a good position, like every single ball that I had the opportunity to hit. It just felt easy and it all set up well for me.”

Adding another offensive weapon like Carr makes an already potent Kentucky offense even better. She flashed that potential in Friday’s win and hopes to build on it as the season progresses.