Grome Breaks Assist Record as Kentucky Punches Sweet 16 Ticket
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Senior setter Emma Grome broke the Kentucky Volleyball rally-scoring era for assists Friday night in Historic Memorial Coliseum as the third-seeded Wildcats beat sixth-seeded Minnesota 3-1 (25-11, 23-25, 25-22, 25-24) in four sets to punch their ticket to the regional semifinals of the 2024 NCAA Volleyball Championship.
Grome came into the match Friday night trailing Madison Lilley, a current assistant coach at Kentucky, by 50 assists and Grome recorded 51 assists in the match with her pass to Brooklyn DeLeye in the fourth set to break the school record.
With Friday night’s win, Kentucky advances into next weekend’s NCAA Regional Semifinals, which will be hosted by the highest-remaining seeded team in Kentucky’s quadrant of the bracket. If No. 1 overall seed Pittsburgh and No. 2 seeded SMU both lose this weekend, Kentucky would be the host institution next weekend.
The matches next weekend will either be Thursday and Saturday or Friday and Sunday. The NCAA and its television partners ABC and ESPN will announce the designations for which regionals are which day on Sunday once all the first and second round matches are completed.
Kentucky hit .324 in the match with three players reaching double-figure scoring led by Brooklyn DeLeye, who had 22 kills on 49 swings. DeLeye was joined by Erin Lamb, who had 13 kills on 28 swings and Megan Wilson trickled into double figures with 11 kills on 27 swings in the match. Both middles for Kentucky had solid nights with Jordyn Dailey going errorless on nine kills and Brooke Bultema logging eight terminations for the UK offense.
Brooke Bultema had a monster night on defense, going for a new career-high seven blocks including a key solo stuff in the middle of the third set. Bultema had a dig and was responsible for 12 points in the match as one of Kentucky’s best players on the night.
Kentucky is now into its seventh regional semifinal in the last eight seasons and 14th regional semifinal in program history. UK will play the winner of (7) Missouri and SMU in the next round.
Set One
Kentucky came out of the gates screaming to an 8-1 lead as Minnesota took an early timeout at 6-1 after three-straight overpass kills by Kentucky’s outside hitter, Brooklyn DeLeye. Kentucky’s lead of six then grew to seven on a kill by Jordyn Dailey out of the middle and that lead grew even more on Kentucky’s fourth block of the set from freshman Jordyn Dailey to make things 13-5 in the opening frame. Emma Grome’s second block of the night grew the lead to double digits at 15-5, its largest lead of the set to that point. The UK offensive avalanche kept coming, with UK taking a 23-8 lead on a kill from DeLeye and a kill by DeLeye on the next point gave Kentucky its first set point. DeLeye’s eighth kill of the match gave UK the set, 25-11 and 1-0 lead in the match. The Wildcats hit .516 for the set and held the Gophers to .040 hitting in the set with no player getting more than two kills for Minnesota. Emma Grome had 12 assists on 18 of Kentucky’s kills in the set.
Set Two
After the opening part of the second set was tight, Kentucky’s serving pressure began to take control as the Wildcats took its first deficit of the night at 10-8 and flipped it around with a 7-0 run than encompassed two timeouts and gave the Wildcats a 16-11 lead with the Gophers out of stoppages and Molly Tuozzo serving dynamic balls that kept Minnesota out of system the entire run. Minnesota called its second timeout down five at 16-11 and sided out the following point on a hitting error by UK, its third in the entire match to that point. A 3-0 Golden Gopher run, its biggest of the match to that point, pulled the lead back to one at 18-17 and Kentucky called its first timeout of the match and the set to talk things over. A service ace gave Minnesota another lead in the set after Kentucky settled the boat, and after yet another ace, Minnesota took a 21-19. A service error ended the set as Minnesota evened the match, 25-23.
Set Three
A 3-0 run on Emma Grome’s serve with a pair of Jordyn Dailey kills gave Kentucky a 10-5 lead hitting over .500 in the set and Minnesota called its first timeout 15 points into the set trailing by five. UK’s five-point lead at 14-9 was cut to two at 14-12 and the Wildcats called their first timeout of the set leading by a pair on Elise McGhie’s serve. Kentucky expanded its lead on a block by Brooke Bultema to make things 18-14 and Minnesota took its final stoppage to play. Minnesota closed the gap to two at 22-20, but a block by Grome and Jordyn Dailey ended the set at 25-22 as the Wildcats avoided the Golden Gophers comeback late in the frame to take a 2-1 lead.
Set Four
After a tight opening stanza, Kentucky got the first traction in the set with a 4-1 run thanks to Molly Tuozzo’s digs and a couple of chippy points by Erin Lamb tooling the block to make things 14-12 Wildcats and the Gophers called their first timeout. Out of the timeout, Brooklyn DeLeye placed her third service ace to the floor to balloon the lead and then Lamb’s 11th kill off an extended rally made things 16-12 as Kentucky took stranglehold of its largest lead of the set to that point. Minnesota then immediately responded with three in a row including an ace and with things 16-15 in UK’s favor, the Wildcats called their first timeout of the set with its lead trimmed to one. An attack error on the Golden Gophers ended the match and Kentucky took the final frame in extra points, 26-24.
For the latest on UK Volleyball, follow the Wildcats on Twitter and Instagram at @KentuckyVB.
NCAA REGIONAL POSTGAME QUOTES
MINNESOTA VS. KENTUCKY
HISTORIC MEMORIAL COLISEUM – LEXINGTON, KY.
DECEMBER 6, 2024
KENTUCKY QUOTES
Kentucky Head Coach Craig Skinner
Opening Statement…
“Just proud of the group. The mental toughness growth that we’ve had throughout the season is pretty significant. Even saw it in that match. Set two let it slip away and then tough as nails in the fourth so, proud of our group and to be able to hit .325 on a great defensive team like that is big time. And these two right here carried a heavy stick today, and along with some others. Proud of Erin Lamb with 13 kills, almost .400, Jordyn Dailey .560, some huge numbers across the board and the blocking was a big part of the momentum shifts for us.”
#17 Brooklyn DeLeye
On the mentality of the team during the final timeout…
“We just kind of regrouped. I think we knew it was going to be a back-and-forth game, and we were just going to have to sustain our rallies. I think we did a good job of that, and just making sure we were stable on our block, and just having our defense around us, and I think just everybody contributed to that, and I think the bench did a good job of telling us what was open on our shots, and just everyone as a whole really contributed to the end of the game.”
On getting back to the regional semifinals…
“I think we’re just not expecting the next day to happen. I think we just got to play one day at a time. I think we have such a huge senior class, and I think we’re just playing for them as well, because any game could be their last, and we obviously want to go as far as we can and get to that championship court. So I think just having that in the back of our heads too, and just playing for each other.”
On having confidence in your team going up against tougher opponents…
“At the beginning of the year we were just trying to get our group together, put some new pieces into place, and I think throughout the season we have done that really well, where other teams may have peaked at the wrong time. Going into this tournament and going into the final stretch, I think we’re still improving and getting better, where other teams already know what they’re doing and I feel like we have that edge. No one can tell what we’re going to bring out because we have so many different plays that others just don’t do. And I think it’s going to be really scary to play us.”
#4 Emma Grome
On breaking the record …
“It’s just been incredible. I mean, it really hit me today. I honestly didn’t realize until someone said to me earlier that today was my last game in Memorial ever. And I got emotional, it’s sad. My four years here have been absolutely incredible. Every year I feel like our team grows so much and the people here are so awesome. I don’t know, it’s been getting to me lately, guys, but it’s been awesome.”
On having confidence in your team going up against tougher opponents…
“The reason that we play the tough non-conference schedule is to be prepared this time of year. We might have lost those games, but we learned a lot from those games. We learned how to battle, we learned what it takes, and now we’ve just seen our growth the whole season. We’ve been going up and up and I think we’re playing really well right now at the time that we need to be. And we’ve got that edge that we’ve been talking about, and we’ve got the grittiness. So, I think we’re ready and we’re just going to have to go in and take some chances.”
On their mentality through the second to fourth sets…
“We started off strong. You never know how games like that are going to start, but we knew they were going to come back a lot stronger than they did in the first set, and that’s what they did. So we knew we needed to sustain our level of energy and our level of play, and I think it dipped a little bit throughout the match, but we were able to get it back up and keep it pretty steady.”
On getting back to the regional semifinals…
“It’s incredible, I mean, we’ve had our ups and downs with injuries, and we knew it was going to take us a little bit throughout the season to get our group, you know, get our offense, get our defense up. We just knew it’s going to take some time to get to this level, but now we’re here. I mean, it’s incredible the growth we’ve had. Every single player has made huge strides, and as you’ve seen as a team, we’re just so gritty now, we’re so intense. The growth has just been huge, and it’s so awesome that we’ve gotten to this point, and we just got to keep it going. But we’re in a really good spot. I’m really proud of how we’ve performed.”
MINNESOTA QUOTES
Minnesota Head Coach Keegan Cook
Opening Statement…
“First and foremost, congratulations. The University of Kentucky has an outstanding program as well as an outstanding team, they’ve also been outstanding hosts for this subregional. I appreciate everyone’s professionalism. I’m proud of our guys, I think Kentucky is a formidable opponent. Obviously, they are SEC champions for a reason and they have great potential in this tournament. They did what they do best and that’s run a really diverse powered offense and certainly knocked us on our heels a little bit in that first set but then I thought our group did what they do best which was respond and show them some of the things that they can do defensively as well as in transition. I think what you want most is to have a chance late and I thought we had a chance late there in that fourth set to send it to five. I would’ve liked to see what we could do in a fifth set. I don’t want to think about the things that could’ve been but just think about this senior class and I brought as many of them up here as they’d let me. What a special group right? They’ve given a lot to the program and some of them joined it in the transition, some of them stayed through it in the transition but it says everything about them. How you behave when things are uncertain in life and the choices you make and where you choose to be when things are uncertain and it’s a big deal. And these three chose to plant some seeds, which they may not get to sit underneath the shade of when they grow but I’m certainly indebted to them for getting us through these transition years and setting a foundation for us to be good.”
On Minnesota coming back in the second set …
“I thought our block and defense started to show up. If you think about who we’ve been all year, serving, blocking, and transition offense has been kind of our MO, and we’ve made a tremendous amount of progress in serve-receive throughout the year and so unfortunately in that first set we weren’t applying a lot of pressure and that allowed Kentucky to apply pressure. Once we started to apply pressure offensively things kind of got back under control and turned into a nice little back-and-forth with lots of lead changes and some high-level volleyball. There’s not a lot of teams who can have a first set like that and then turn it into a match.”
On the senior group and moving forward …
“I don’t know how much time we have to just talk about the day-to-day and how these guys behave. Just have their parties in order of people, values, and volleyball. We talk a lot about it and it can be where it’s just on paper and it can be a huge part of who we are. These five seniors put their teammates first. They are selfless in how they went about their day-to-day, worked hard for this coaching staff, and were coachable. It’s a long list of things that they chose to be in a difficult moment. Coaching transitions are perilous these days. There’s a lot farther to fall when you’re at the University of Minnesota than there is to rise and these guys kept us in a great place and set us up to be pretty special.”
#9 Lydia Grote
On turning things around after the first set…
“Once that first set ended the conversation was, that set is gone, it’s in the past and we cannot change it but we can change our future. We can go in and play as hard as we can as together to make a different outcome happen. So, basically leave that first set in the past, it’s gone, and it doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is the second set.”
On the player’s personal careers at Minnesota…
“There’s no place like Minnesota, it’s so special and I love it and I am so grateful that I’ve had time here as a transfer. I love this team, they have so much that is coming for them in the next few years. They have so much ethic and drive and I cannot wait to see where they go.”
#7 Phoebe Awoleye
On turning things around after the first set…
“She said it pretty well, we knew that’s not how we play. That’s not Gopher volleyball and we knew that at the end of the day, we just have to win the next set. We did that, it was 1-1 and we went into that second set with the mentality that we know what we are doing. We are gopher volleyball, so we need to play gopher volleyball.”
On the player’s personal careers at Minnesota…
“For me, I am a transfer so coming from a different program. Gopher nation, everybody behind us and the staff is extremely special here. It’s been a great experience, obviously we wanted to go farther but being able to go this far with this group of people. These are my people and I know that I’ll have them for the rest of my life. It sucks we didn’t get as far as we wanted to this year, but I know ill be at their weddings. These are my girls.”
#5 Melani Shaffmaster
On turning things around after the first set…
“I think Kate at one point said, that was embarrassing but we needed someone to keep it really honest and I don’t think a lot was understood of what had just happened. We were sitting on the bench and Kate decided to talk, what she had for the group was really good. We needed someone to slap us in the face and come back to reality. That wasn’t Gopher volleyball, I haven’t seen that in a long, long time. I think we did a really good job listening to each other and coming back together. We cut down on some errors and got some jitters out on that first set. Mainly, we just wanted to play for each other.”
On the player’s personal careers at Minnesota…
“I have been at Minnesota my whole time in college, so five whole years with Keegan and all the staff that’s been changing. I’ve loved it since I got there, I loved it on my visit a long time ago. I think this year especially, I’ve never been on a team where the team is so good. I’ve been to Sweet 16s and Elite Eights in the past but you just know you are with a really special group when you can just feel it. I think obviously it sucks to lose but at the end of the day, it was a lot of fun to be with these guys. It’s better to lose with people you aren’t talking to outside of volleyball, like Phoebe said, we will see each other again, at each other’s weddings. That’s the kinda team we are. I couldn’t have asked for anything else for the past five years of my life.”
