Happy Halloween everybody! I hope everyone enjoys the festivities tonight on this last day of October (that’s hard to believe, isn’t it?), but I feel more like talking about a big 5-1 weekend in UK Athletics.

• If you missed it Sunday afternoon, the Kentucky volleyball team picked up a huge upset win over No. 13 Florida in an exciting five-set match. I wrote a column yesterday evening about the victory, which keeps UK right in the thick of a close Southeastern Conference race, and below is a video with highlights from the match and some comments from Craig Skinner.

‘;
//–>

• Volleyball wasn’t the only UK team to pick up a win over a top-15 opponent on Sunday. On Senior Day, men’s soccer got two goals in the first eight minutes from seniors C.J. Tappel and Josh Mulvany en route to a 2-0 victory in the Cats’ last home match of the season. UK had to play the final 62 minutes of the game a man down, but the UK defense withstood No. 15 SMU. Here is what Ian Collins had to say about his team’s effort.

• If you were worried about UK rifle resting on their laurels after a national championship last season, you can forget about that. The Cats are off to a perfect 3-0 start to the season, with each win coming against foes from the Great American Rifle Conference. Their latest victory was at home over Memphis on Sunday, with UK posting a new school and NCAA-record team score of 4711. UK’s previous record of 4700 was set during the NCAA Tournament run a season ago. Sophomore Emily Holsopple also set a school record with a nearly perfect score of 597 in air rifle. The Wildcats were ranked No. 2 in the nation coming into the weekend, but Sunday’s performance vaulted them ahead of West Virginia and into the top spot in the latest rankings released on Monday.

• Jon Lipsitz and the women’s soccer team brought their 2011 regular season to a close with a dynamic 4-2 road win against Vanderbilt. Caitlin Landis put in two goals for the Cats, setting up a rematch with Tennessee in the first round of the SEC Tournament in Orange Beach, Ala., on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. UK (13-6-0, 6-5-0 SEC) defeated Tennessee in double overtime just weeks ago and will be looking to further strengthen its already strong NCAA Tournament profile.

• The swimming and diving team put together a dominating performance in a weekend sweep of Western Kentucky and Vanderbilt, winning 18 of 32 events. It was a balanced effort from both the divers and swimmers, with sophomore Greg Ferrucci leading the way with a school-record score of 387.37 in the one-meter diving event.

• Men’s basketball is preparing for the first of two exhibition games on Wednesday against Transylvania and John Calipari is having his team scrimmage more and more. Calipari has seven players he views as capable of starting (Darius Miller, Terrence Jones, Doron Lamb, Marquis Teague, Kyle Wiltjer, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Anthony Davis) and has taken to putting two of those seven on a team together against the other five as a means to challenge them. That’s what he did on Sunday with Jones and Kidd-Gilchrist. The pair responded and actually won. Eric Lindsey of CoachCal.com has a report from the practice I encourage you to check out if you haven’t already.

• With UK playing Transy this week, Jon Scott from BigBlueHistory.net has a comprehensive history of the rivalry between the two schools, which he calls “the oldest and most embittered rivalry” UK has ever had. There’s a ton of great information there and you can also read his story from Sunday’s Lexington Herald-Leader about the same topic.

• Media day for UK Hoops is nearly upon us. Matthew Mitchell and members of the UK women’s basketball team will be available for interviews on Tuesday. We’ll have features, video and notes beginning tomorrow afternoon.