By Connor Link, UK AthleticsAfter a sloppy set of opening play to begin Thursday’s match with Lipscomb, the Wildcats quickly found themselves staring at a 1-0 deficit on the Memorial Coliseum scoreboard. Once the set ended and the Kentucky players made their way to the team huddle, senior Lauren O’Conner knew something had to change.”(The huddle) was a little intense, but we just wanted to focus on the next game,” O’Conner said. “This season we’ve really been focusing on next point, next play, so I’ve been really excited about that. This match, forget about the last (set), take care of what we need to do, and handle business.”After Lipscomb claimed the first set 25-21, No. 15 Kentucky slammed its foot on the gas and never looked back. The Wildcats woke up and won the next three sets, and none by fewer than eight points.”Individually, we all stepped it up another level, and we had to focus on some of the players that were going off, like the pin hitters,” O’Conner said. “I think we did a good job the rest of the game of putting up better blocks and playing better defense.”Defense, as she and her Kentucky teammates promptly realized, ultimately proved to be the turning point. Lipscomb cruised to victory in the first set by way of a .519 hitting percentage, but finished the next three sets at .047, -.029, and .088, respectively. UK head coach Craig Skinner attributes the opening set loss simply to his team’s prolonged period of adjustment.”Well, Lipscomb is a good team,” Skinner said. “We knew that coming in, and they hit .500 in set one. That is partly on us, but partly them. They run a style that is hard to catch up to. It took us a set.”After falling to the Lady Bisons in the first set, Skinner knew the Cats had to make immediate alterations if they wanted to avoid being on the wrong side of an upset. “We were blocking the wrong shots on their outside hitters, and we had to make an adjustment on that,” Skinner said. “We were allowing their middles to score on good passes. Our middles were not jumping with them. But, we had to change the tempo with our serve. We had to drop in some short balls and stuff like that to slow down the rhythm, and that really worked tonight.”On offense, O’Conner led the way. The outside hitter finished the evening with 14 kills, just four shy of her career high, hitting .444 in the process.”She is a very experienced player, and has a high IQ of the game,” Skinner said. “When her offense is going, she is a real threat, and (she) helps balance our attack along all three thirds of the net. She did a great job of that tonight.”O’Conner, typical of a senior leader, was quick to deflect praise to her teammates and the way they bounced back from a forgettable start.”Morgan (Bergren) put up really good sets and once the second, third, and fourth set came our defense overall got better, which allowed her to be able to position the ball better so everyone allowed me to get the kills that I did,” O’Conner said.