No. 7 Purdue Beats No. 10 Kentucky, 3-1
DALLAS – The No. 7 Purdue Boilermakers stayed undefeated on the 2024 season Saturday afternoon with a 3-1 (21-25, 25-13, 25-23, 25-16) four-set win on the final day of the Doubletree Invitational hosted by Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
UK won the opening set behind several critical swings from the right arm of Megan Wilson, who had four kills in the first set alone, but Purdue responded well by jumping out to leads of at least six points in the final three sets of the match before each of the last three sets reached the midway point and it proved to be too much to overcome for the Wildcats.
Kentucky had three players reach double-figures in scoring with Brooklyn DeLeye, Megan Wilson and Erin Lamb all notching 10+ kills on the afternoon, but it was Purdue’s two-headed monster of Eva Hudson and Chloe Chicoine that combined for more than 30 terminations that proved to be the difference in Saturday’s top-10 affair.
Kentucky will play in its fourth top-10 showdown of the season in its next match as the Wildcats will play host to No. 5 Louisville on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. ET inside Historic Memorial Coliseum. The match will be televised live on ESPN and the ESPN app with Eric Frede and Katie George on the call from HMC.
With Saturday’s result, Kentucky drops to 6-3 on the season with all three losses coming against top-10 teams. Purdue improves to 8-0 on the year with Saturday’s win over Kentucky.
This match marked the second time this season that the Wildcats have won the opening set against a top-10 team, but failed to win the match.
Set One
It was the Megan Wilson show early in the opening set as Kentucky’s senior outside hitter logged four terminations on her first four swings of the match to give UK a four-point, set-high lead at 15-11 of the opening set at the media timeout. Brooklyn DeLeye served the Boilers out of system on back-to-back points and then an ace capped off a 3-0 run to give UK the 18-14 lead and Purdue called its first timeout of the set trailing by four. Out of the timeout, a kill from Erin Lamb on the left extended UK’s lead to 19-14, which was the biggest lead for either side to that point in the match. Purdue then caught fire offensively and rallied to win six of the next nine points to tie things up at 21-21 as it was a race to four from there. Kentucky then closed the set on a 4-0 run with Megan Wilson’s fourth termination ending the set as UK hit .302 on the set with 16 kills and only three errors.
Set Two
Set two was all Purdue from the jump as the Boilermakers won each of the first four points and Kentucky was forced into a quick timeout at 9-3. The lead ballooned to double digits at 15-4 and the Wildcats again took a timeout to try and cut down the Purdue momentum, but the Boilermakers kept things going, hitting .423 for the set and holding Kentucky to .094 as Purdue evened the match 1-1 with a 25-13 second set victory.
Set Three
The beginning of the third set started the same as the second with Purdue clicking on all cylinders offensively and cranking out a 7-2 lead that pushed Kentucky into an early timeout. The lead for Purdue grew into a seven-point lead at 11-4 before the Wildcats began to chip away point by point and clawed back into the set by using a 4-0 scoring run sandwiching a Boilermaker timeout at 17-15 to knot the set at 17-17 following a block by Brooke Bultema and Emma Grome on the left pin. Purdue then won the three following points to take a 21-18 lead and Kentucky burned its final timeout down three late in the set. Purdue saw things out from there to take a two sets to one lead with a third-set victory, 25-23 closing the set on a 2-0 run after UK squared the set 23-23.
Set Four
Purdue rolled to an 11-5 lead in the fourth set as the Wildcats offense was unable to get anything going early in the set and Kentucky called its first timeout trailing by six. Purdue again began to pick up steam as the set carried on, as the lead grew to as many as nine, and Kentucky couldn’t catch up to the Boilermaker offense as Purdue took the set, 25-16.
For the latest on UK Volleyball, follow the Wildcats on Twitter and Instagram at @KentuckyVB.
