Put that one in the memory bank, Kentucky.On an inexperienced team with a lot of new faces in key roles, there will be nights like Wednesday’s when the UK volleyball team falls behind early and sometimes ugly. Against archrival Louisville on Wednesday, it became so sluggish in the first set that it was almost too unbearable to watch if you were a Wildcat fan.A hitting percentage of -.100, 6.5 blocks by U of L and some of the worst passing you will ever see from a collegiate volleyball team equated to another, “Uh oh, here we go again.” After getting dismissed easily by a pair of top-10 teams in No. 2 Nebraska and No. 9 Iowa State over the weekend, it was easy to see why things were looking doom and gloom.”It couldn’t get much worse,” senior middle blocker Lauren Rapp said.And then, with what head coach Craig Skinner called “a few choice words” of wisdom after the first set and the help of a raucous crowd of 2,178 in a steamy Memorial Coliseum, the Cats rallied from a miserable 25-14 loss in the first set and rebounded from a pair of missed opportunities in the fourth set to defeat the Cardinals 3-2 in a five-set thriller.”I think whoever watches us play better not leave their seat because they are going to miss something,” Skinner said. “Something exciting is going to happen when we play. I love coaching this team because they compete. They never give up and they are not afraid to make mistakes. You have to have that type of mentality to beat good teams and win five-game matches.”Much like the Nebraska match to open the season, the Cats looked lost and out of sync to begin the first set. Skinner attributed it to being too amped up. But by the time UK went up 2-1 and rallied from a five-point deficit in the fifth set, this looked like a team worthy of its No. 16 ranking.”We just have to calm down,” Skinner said. “We get amped up and get a lot of adrenaline pumping. We have to find a happy medium of our emotions so we can control what we are doing on the court early in matches. That’s a big part of it. You saw us pass and ball handle as the match went on and it was really good. But we have got to learn to do that from point one.”Whatever the case, Skinner will look back and use it later on in the year. The first-set loss was a microcosm of the first weekend and the fifth-set deficit was a haunting nightmare from last season.It was the perfect learning tool for this team.On a squad with new faces (Whitney Billings, Alexandra Morgan and Jessi Greenberg) and new leadership roles (Blaire Hiler, Lauren Rapp, Stephanie Klefot and Christine Hartmann), getting down early was the perfect example for the rest of the season. It was what the Cats needed.The team learned not to panic. There are going to be deficits and there are going to be fifth-set tiebreakers. The point is how you finish the matches.”We have had games like that before,” Hiler said. “We’ve had many games like that where we start out slow, and we don’t need to do that anymore, but we have always come back and fought back, and our team has a lot of heart and is filled with competitors. Just because we are down doesn’t mean that’s going to be the ending result.”It took some pretty sound beatings this weekend at the American Volleyball Coaches Association Showcase to learn that. Forget the preseason top-15 rankings – on a team with so many important positions to fill, there are going to be rough patches this season.The important thing for Skinner’s team is that unlike last weekend, they didn’t let it snowball. They composed themselves, regrouped and played some pretty solid volleyball down the stretch despite some not-so-pretty numbers (in particular, a .072 hitting percentage).”You can start out how ever you want, but that really doesn’t matter as long as you stay composed and be single focused on what you are going to do right now,” Skinner said. “We did a great job through sets two and three and for most of game four. The end of game five was a very mentally tough group of players that finished off that set.”These “new” players are going to learn by fire for much of the year. The gaudy record of the past two years probably won’t be there, but talent wise this team could be better.It’s just young.They’re learning on the fly and gaining valuable experience. As Skinner said last week before the season, potential wise, this team could be just as good or better than last year.It’s just going to take time.”Practice is one thing, but under the lights is completely different,” Skinner said. “You feel like it’s sometimes an out-of-body experience early in matches. The more we’re in those situations, the more we’re next to each other, the more we play together and play close games, I think that becomes secondary and then you think about how you are suppose to execute skills.”They’re learning and they’re going to be OK. Don’t panic over that 0-2 start the season. The players didn’t Wednesday when they rallied to be Louisville.