After starting out the season with a 4-0 overall record, the Tennessee volleyball team won one match and lost two during the Diet Coke Classic over the weekend.
In Tennessee’s first match of the Classic, the Vols defeated the UTSA Roadrunners off of standout performances by Kendra Turner, Breana Jeter and Brooke Schumacher.
On Saturday, Tennessee faced off against both West Virginia and Minnesota, falling to both teams and recording its first losses of the season.
Against West Virginia, the Vols dropped the first set 25-20 after taking a 21-13 lead. Turner recorded four kills and notched a .222 hitting percentage during the set, while Erica Treiber and Jeter had two kills each.
West Virginia took the next two sets as well (26-16, 25-22) to claim victory in the match. Tennessee had 106 attacks and freshman Callie Williams recorded her first double-double (13 assists, 10 digs) during play.
Next, the Vols matched up against the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Minnesota was ranked No. 2 in the nation heading into Saturday’s match.
The Golden Gophers won the match’s three sets 25-22, 25-15 and 25-20 to give the Vols their second loss of the year and of the Classic.
Jeter and Turner paced Tennessee against Minnesota, combining for 20 kills and 51 attacks. Both players hit over .250 during the match.
“I was very happy with how we responded to a very disappointing loss earlier in the day,” head coach Rob Patrick said. “I thought we did a really nice job of really picking up our offensive game against the No. 2 team in the country.”
Treiber led Tennessee with a hitting percentage of .533. She also had no errors and recorded eight kills.
Sedona Hansen and Williams had 20 and 14 assists, respectively, and Schumacher notched 14 digs.
Minnesota’s Regan Pittman had 15 kills, 19 attacks and a .684 hitting percentage against the Vols. Stephanie Samedy notched 17 kills and 10 digs as well.
“We saw something offensively that they did that we’ve never really seen before, and their offense really gave us trouble,” Patrick said. “But I really like how we competed and played a low-error game to keep us in the match for two-thirds of the way.”
Tennessee will travel to Tallahassee, Florida, to play No. 15 Florida State on Friday at 6 p.m. The match will be part of the Florida State-Florida A&M Classic.
