Offensive Attack Leads Cats to Season-Opening Win

Kentucky volleyball head coach Craig Skinner has talked about having a balanced offense many times.  Being able to distribute the ball to many players always makes the Cats difficult to defend. And in the 2026 season opener, Skinner’s Cats showed just that in a victory over No. 6 Wisconsin.

The Cats swept the Badgers in Milwaukee to open the 2026 campaign. As a team, Kentucky hit a sizzling .385 in the match. UK had 43 kills and only eight errors on 91 swings in the match.

Skinner credited setter Kassie O’Brien with getting a lot of players involved in the offense.

“Kassie was great,” Skinner told ESPN after the match. “She got a lot of people involved both behind the set or in front of the center. She got the quicks established early to get (Wisconsin) thinking about them.”

UK had seven players notch a kill in Friday’s match, led by the dynamic duo of Brooklyn DeLeye and Morgan Gaerte. DeLeye led Kentucky with 12 kills while hitting .323 in the match. Gaerte had 10 kills while hitting .529.

Skinner was pleased with how DeLeye played in Friday’s match.

“Brooklyn came through in some big moments for us,” Skinner said.

However, it wasn’t just DeLeye and Gaerte. The Cats got eight kills from middle blocker Lizzie Carr, seven kills from Asia Thigpen, four kills and four blocks from Kennedy Washington. Skinner was impressed with his team’s physicality in Friday’s match.

“Obviously, with six-five, six-six in the front row, and athletes like Asia and Brooklyn, it makes hitters think about what they do before they do it,” Skinner said. “There’s going to be ups and downs and you have to weather the storm.”

What might be overlooked in Friday’s win is the Kentucky defense. The Cats had 10 blocks in the match, in addition to 44 digs. Wisconsin had just five blocks and 38 digs in the match.

Between the offense and the defense, Kentucky looked very impressive in the season opener,  basically playing a road game against Wisconsin. The Cats will carry Friday’s win into a tough match against  Pittsburgh on Sunday.