The Lady Vols did battle against the Alabama Crimson Tide on Sunday in their second SEC home game.
After getting the upper hand early against the Lady Vols, the Crimson Tide snuck by the Lady Vols in four sets, 25-15, 25-20, 20-25, 29-27.
After Tennessee (7-11, 0-4 SEC) tied the first set 1-1, Alabama (15-3, 3-1 SEC) seemed to get in a rhythm, with The Tide stretching their lead to 18-9 at one point. The Lady Vols came out unprepared for Alabama’s All-American Krystal Rivers, who had five kills in the first set alone. Rivers would end up with 12 kills on the day.
The second set showed the Lady Vols fight back, as Tennessee jumped out to a 5-2 lead early before letting Alabama score three straight points to tie it up. Five lead changes and four ties later, the Crimson Tide had the lead, 12-11. After this, the Tide slowly began pulling away. Jamie Lea was impressive the first two sets, smashing eight kills and having a hitting percentage of 0.800.
“We had a nice talk at the halftime,” head coach Rob Patrick said. “What we talked about was if we could cut down on some unforced errors on our side of the net, we were gonna be okay.
“When we were playing the game of volleyball, we were playing with Alabama. We were just making some unforced errors in every area of the game.”
The third set showed the Lady Vols playing tremendous volleyball. UT only trailed twice in the entire set, and that was when Alabama led the Lady Vols 2-1 and 3-2. However, after a 3-3 tie, the Lady Vols would go on a 7-2 run to take a 10-5 lead over the Tide. Alabama would pull within two at 13-11, but the Lady Vols turned on the jets, eventually winning the set 25-20.
Shealyn Kolosky killed five balls in the set to help push her team forward.
“As a team, we were a little more organized, and we came together a little bit more,” Kolosky said.
Patrick added, “We cleaned up our side of the net, and we played consistently, and we scored some points.”
The fourth set was full of comeback and heartbreak for the Lady Vols. Alabama quickly jumped out to a 9-3 lead, but Patrick rallied his troops. Slowly, but surely, the Lady Vols chipped away at the Tide’s lead.
Soon enough, it was tied up, 17-17.
After a back and forth for the next 12 points, the Tide slammed home a kill that proved to be the final blow for the Lady Vols, as they lost the set 29-27. Discouraged but hopeful, Coach Patrick said he was still very proud of his team.
“They really made Alabama work extremely hard to win each point, and that’s what we wanna do,” Patrick said. “We’re getting closer and closer to playing at full match consistency.”
Jamie Lea led the Lady Vols in kills with 11, the only Lady Vol with double-digit kills. Bridgette Villano had 16 digs in this match, her most since Sept. 18 against Memphis. Kelsey Bawcombe chimed in with six kills and eight digs.
Lexi Dempsey is now only five assists away from the 1500 career assist mark after having 25 against the Tide.
The Lady Vols will be able to rest until Oct. 10, when they square off against the No. 13 Kentucky Wildcats. This will be the third straight match at home for the Lady Vols. The match starts at 7 p.m. Friday.
