Passing, Serving Lead Cats Past Auburn Sunday

The Kentucky volleyball team spends a lot of time working on serving and passing. And that showed up on Sunday inside Memorial Coliseum, as the second-ranked Cats used those two skills on their way to a second consecutive sweep over Auburn.

The Cats ended up with five service aces in the match, but that only tells part of the story. Kentucky pressured Auburn with the serve all day long, forcing the Tigers into several difficult situations.

“We’ve been working a lot on serving lately. Putting pressure on them, keeping the ball lower to the tape,” UK head coach Craig Skinner said after the match. “The first two sets (on Sunday), I thought we did a really good job.”

Kentucky (6-0) got service aces from four different players in the match. Freshman Riah Walker led the way with a pair of aces, while Madison Lilley, Cameron Scheitzach and Lauren Tharp each adding an ace.

Walker has come a long way with her serve in the last few months.

“It’s funny, when I came into Kentucky, I probably had the worst serve of the entire team,” Walker said. “The coaches have just really started from the beginning and now, I’m so confident in my serve.”

Skinner knows how important serving will be if his team is to reach its goals.

“We need to be a good serving team to beat the teams we want to beat,” Skinner said. “We did a good job of being efficient the whole match (Sunday).”

But it wasn’t just serving that helped the Cats get the win on Sunday. While the UK blocking game was not having a spectacular day, the Cats’ digging and passing were outstanding. Kentucky had 48 digs in the three-set match, with three players registering double-digit digs on Sunday.

“Our serve/receive numbers were off the chart for the first set and I think the second set as well,” Skinner said. “We had some really good digs defensively at  middle back and left back.

Skinner praised Walker, who earned her first career start in today’s match and who responded with a career-high 10 digs to go along with her pair of service aces.

“Riah had some really nice ones in the third set, ending up with 10 digs as a freshman in her first match where she knew she was going to be playing a ton,” Skinner said.

As for Walker, getting her first start is something she had prepared herself to do.

“It was definitely very exciting,” Walker said. “A little nerve-wracking but I think that the coaches and teammates have done such a good job, they made it way less stressful.”

Walker is already learning from UK senior libero Gabby Curry, who is one of the best in the country at her position.

“Gabby Curry has helped me so much, basically being another coach to me,” Walker said. “Teaching me everything she knows. I struggle with talking a lot, communication, she’s gotten on me about being louder. It definitely helps a lot.”

As for Curry on Sunday, she did what she does in nearly every match. She quietly had 10 digs to go with five assists and a kill.

“If you notice her, it probably means she’s not having a great match,” Skinner said of Curry. “That’s the sign of a really good player. She’s so composed and so competitive. You could be playing the first match of the year or the last match of the year and you would see the same Gabby Curry.”

Curry knows that her role is to make things easier on her teammates.

“I think my job is to make everyone else look good and to be able to do their job,” Curry said. “Kudos to our blocking. It makes us really easy to be quiet in the back row. If we have a lot of digs, that means our block is set up well.”

All of the work that team puts into serving and passing paid off in a big way on Sunday. Skinner hopes that trend will continue throughout the season.