Craig Skinner Wins 500th Game in Sweep of South Florida
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Kentucky Volleyball head coach Craig Skinner won his 500th career match Saturday night in Historic Memorial Coliseum, as No. 3 Kentucky defeated South Florida, 3-0 (25-18, 25-16, 25-19) to close out the 2026 Bluegrass Battle.
Skinner, who is in his 22nd season at Kentucky, has won more matches than any head coach in program history. The native of Muncie, Indiana who took the helm of Kentucky Volleyball in 2005 has led Kentucky to nine-straight Southeastern Conference championships and becomes the second coach in SEC history to win 500 matches at one school, joining Florida’s Mary Wise.
The mastermind of Kentucky’s 2020 NCAA National Championship and two NCAA Final Fours was honored with a post-match ceremony where several past colleagues, coaches, players and assistant coaches sent video messages to Skinner including his family and friends.
In Saturday’s match, UK hit .277 as a team and had two players with 10-plus kills as Brooklyn DeLeye notched 12 terminations to lead the Wildcats and Lizzie Carr had 10 on the night hitting .421 for the match. Kassie O’Brien had 33 assists and Molly Tuozzo had 10 digs in the match.
Kentucky will next play UCLA on Wednesday night in the first match of the 2026 Allstate SEC/Big Ten Challenge inside Historic Memorial Coliseum at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN2. Kevin Barnett, Missy Whittemore and Jessica Eley will have the call from HMC.
UK is now 3-1 on the season and USF is 0-2. The Bulls will play Sunday against Utah State at Noon ET.
Set One
After an unusually slow start, Kentucky caught fire midway through the first set as Asia Thigpen took to the service line with Kentucky trailing 17-16, and by the time she left, Kentucky ran off six points in a row to take a 23-16 lead, the Wildcats’ second 6-0 run of the set. UK then closed by winning eight of the last nine points with two stuffs from Kennedy Washington sprinkled in and took the opening frame, 25-18 over the Bulls. Brooklyn DeLeye had four kills to lead Kentucky, who only hit .067 for the set with eight hitting errors, but it was the defense that made the difference for the Wildcats, as UK held the Bulls to -.077 hitting in the set and only six kills to eight errors with three of those four errors coming as stuff blocks by UK. No player for USF had multiple kills in the opening set.
Set Two
Lizzie Carr was set three-straight times on a transition rally as the third time ended up being the charm as the Wildcats took a 12-9 lead and USF burned its first timeout after that kill and a block from Morgan Gaerte and Carr on the right side with Kassie O’Brien’s serve. The run of three in a row pushed UK in front by three, UK’s largest lead of the set to that point and Carr again converted on a quick out of the timeout to balloon the lead to four at 13-9. Asia Thigpen’s third kill of the match and second of the set pushed the lead to six, a new set high, as Kentucky’s offense began to take rhythm. DeLeye then pushed over an off-speed roll shot to make things 20-13 and the Wildcats forced USF into its final timeout. A 4-0 scoring run closed the book on the second set for UK as it won the frame, 25-16. DeLeye had nine kills and UK hit .429 in the second set and held the Bulls to .111 for the set with only eight kills.
Set Three
The first three points of the set went Kentucky’s way before the Bulls turned things around and led 13-10 to push the Wildcats into their first timeout of the match. Kentucky had the lead of the set up until a challenge went USF’s way to make things 11-10 in the Bulls favor, and out of that stoppage, USF took the next three points on the trot to push the Wildcats into the stoppage. Kentucky used Kassie O’Brien’s serve to go on a 7-0 run and took a four point lead at 19-15, its largest run of the match. Kentucky then closed out the match with a kill from Brooklyn DeLeye.
For the latest on UK Volleyball, follow the Wildcats on Twitter and Instagram at @KentuckyVB.
