DeLeye’s Monster Weekend Capped by Sweep of Arkansas
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Brooklyn DeLeye capped off a monster offensive weekend as she guided No. 4 Kentucky past Arkansas 3-0 (25-23, 25-11, 25-17) in three sets with 15 kills and a .583 hitting percentage. Sunday’s win comes on the heels of hitting over .600 Friday night in a win over Oklahoma to put the caps on a perfect weekend for the Wildcats.
The first set was tight, as Arkansas led as late as 18-16 by two, but strong serving by Kassie O’Brien and Brooklyn DeLeye bailed out the Wildcats, who closed on a 7-3 run to win the set 25-23 and were off and running from there.
For the match, Kentucky hit .381 as a team with 50 kills in just a three-set match, a new season high for UK in a three-match set. The Wildcats held Arkansas to .188 hitting as a team and forced the Hogs into 13 hitting errors for the match, including nine in the third set alone.
Molly Berezowitz filled in for Molly Tuozzo on Sunday afternoon who was nursing an illness as Berezowitz dawned the libero jersey and had 11 digs for the Wildcats with five assists in out-of-system situations, as well.
Kentucky improves to 15-3 on the season overall with Sunday’s result and still anchors first place in the conference with a 7-1 mark in league play as Sunday marked the transition into the second half of league play. The Wildcats will next play at No. 9 Tennessee on Wednesday in Knoxville with the match live on SEC Network at 7 p.m. ET.
Set One
Kentucky hit .366 in the first set en route to a 1-0 lead thanks to a 25-23 margin. The Wildcats came out strong with kills from both pins to take a 6-2 lead before the Razorbacks slowly chipped away and drew things even at 6-6 thanks to a 5-0 run by Arkansas that also gave UA the first lead of the match at 7-6. Arkansas led by two at the media timeout, 15-13 and it was the Wildcats out the timeout who exploded to win a challenge and two extended-rally kills by Brooklyn DeLeye and Morgan Gaerte that pushed UK in front 22-20 as the set entered the red zone and Arkansas called for its first timeout. Kentucky then was punched back to make things 22 all and burned a timeout before three of the last four went UK’s way to close the set with a 25-23 first-set win thanks to a hitting error by Arkansas to end the set. Morgan Gaerte had seven kills for the set to lead all players and Brooklyn DeLeye had five kills on eight swings with six digs. Kassie O’Brien had a strong 17 assists on 20 kills as the Wildcats had 20 kills on its 41 swings. Kentucky won the set despite not recording a block.
Set Two
Kentucky took a two sets to none lead in the second set with a clinical and convincing 25-11 victory. The set was square at seven all through the opening 14 points with each team trading sideouts before the Wildcats went on a season-long 11-0 run paced by Kassie O’Brien’s serving and a few stuffs by Kennedy Washington and Lizzie Carr to hand UK a 15-7 lead at the media timeout and an 18-7 lead by the time O’Brien was chased off the line. Arkansas was forced into its final timeout of the set down 21-8 after a kill by Morgan Gaerte as she crossed into double figures with her 10th of the match and DeLeye’s 11th termination of the afternoon then gave UK set point at 24-11 as Washington finished it off with a slide down the line to clinch the set, 25-11. UK hit .594 in the second set with 19 assists from Kassie O’Brien and UK outstuffed the Hogs 3-1 in that set. The Wildcats had 20 kills to only one error in the second set and held UA to only eight kills on 30 swings with UK outdigging Arkansas 17-8 in the frame.
Set Three
Similar to the second set, things were tight early before the Wildcats put fuel into the jet and took off on an 8-1 run thanks to terminations and stuffs by Lizzie Carr and Kennedy Washington to take a 7-7 set and turn things into a 19-11 lead as the Wildcats entered the red zone. With the eight-point lead at 21-13, UK put the match away thanks to some service errors by Arkansas and a pair of aces to close the match by Kassie O’Brien, 25-17. Kentucky had six service aces in the match to Arkansas’ two.
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