Kentucky Set to Face Colorado State in First Round of NCAA Tournament
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LEXINGTON, Ky. – For the 12th-consecutive season, the Kentucky volleyball team will compete in the NCAA Tournament, traveling to Seattle for the first round with a match against Colorado State. CSU qualified as an at-large bid out of the Mountain West Conference, and the winner will face the host Washington or Texas A&M Corpus-Christi in the second round to advance to the Sweet 16.
Kentucky and Colorado State will face off at 8 p.m. ET on Friday, Dec. 2. The Wildcats and the Rams have met one another once in the past, where UK fell to CSU in five sets in 1987. Ticket information can be found online here.
“I’m proud of all the people it takes to have success in a Division I program like ours,” head coach Craig Skinner said. “The players, our support staff, coaches and strength coaches, our administration and all the people who made a difference to this sport at Kentucky. We’re looking forward to the trip and the opportunity to compete against Colorado State on Friday.”
The Wildcats will travel to host Washington, who earned the automatic bid from the PAC-12 after winning the league. UK has an all-time record against the Huskies of 1-1, with the last meeting, a 3-1 win, coming in 1988. Kentucky has never faced Texas A&M Corpus-Christi.
With the appearance, Kentucky reaches the NCAA Tournament for the 18th time in program history. UK has advanced to the field of 64 in all 12 seasons with Skinner as head coach. UK joins Colorado State, Florida, Hawai’i, Nebraska, Penn State, Southern California, Stanford, Texas and Washington as the only other programs to advance to the tournament in each of the past 12 seasons.
The trip to the tournament adds on to the success of the program. The team hit 20 wins again this season and has reached the milestone in nine of the past 10 seasons.
UK had four players earn All-Southeastern Conference recognition this season. Juniors Ashley Dusek and Kaz Brown, freshman Leah Edmond and sophomore Olivia Dailey. Dusek won the league’s Libero of the Year for the second-consecutive season, while Edmond was name the SEC Freshman of the Year.
Follow along with the Cats on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and on
the web at UKathletics.com.
