Nov. 26, 1999

ORLANDO, Fla. – The Wildcats lost to the Marquette Golden Eagles, 3-0, in Friday afternoon action at the Florida Volleyball Conference Challenge at Disney’s Wide World of Sports. As has been the case so often this season, the Cats were competitive in each game but were unable to consistently put down kills for points.

UK was led in the match by Kristen Batt and Katie Eiserman with nine kills a piece. Megan Weiskircher was the defensive star for the Cats as she led the squad with nine digs and four blocks. Marquette was dominant in the three game sweep despite being out-hit by the Cats in the match, .223 to .207.

Kentucky (15-15) jumped out to an early 9-1 lead in game one helped out in large part by six Marquette hitting errors. The tone of the game slowly began to turn however as some untimely UK hitting errors let the Golden Eagles back in the game. Vesna Grbavac led the charge for Marquette as her five kills powered a 14-1 MU run to close out the game one comeback. UK out-hit the Eagles .241 to .216 in the game, but the Cats could not execute when they had chances for points. Grbavac posted a match-high 14 kills.

The execution problems for Kentucky continued into game two as Marquette opened up a 9-3 advantage aided by four UK hitting errors resulting in MU points. The Cats got within four points at 9-5, but got no closer as Marquette took the game 15-7. The Cats were out-hit .222 to .107 in the game.

Marquette (18-12) grabbed another big lead to start game three. Despite a UK hitting advantage of .297 to .216 in the game, the inability of the Cats to follow their serves with a kill doomed them in the game. UM took the game 15-6 for the 3-0 sweep. Kentucky will be trying to post its second consecutive winning season when the Cats take on South Florida tomorrow at noon.