No. 10 Tennessee volleyball swept Ole Miss for the second time this season (25-7, 25-19, 25-18) on Sunday.

The Lady Vols (21-3, 12-2 SEC) out-served, passed and hit Ole Miss (10-16, 4-11), which ultimately led to another win for their record.

“I think personally, it’s more difficult because teams tend to switch things up,” Erykah Lovett said “You might have that first time still in your mind and the team is doing something totally different.”

Here are three key takeaways from the match.

High and even hitting percentage

The Lady Vols had fire power coming from all hitting positions throughout the match. During the first set, Tennessee hit extremely well with a .654 hitting percentage. Ole Miss struggled to adjust to the Lady Vols’ fast paced tempo, which ultimately resulted in a 25-7 win.

The Lady Vols kept their hitting percentage relatively high .443 in the second set, Ole Miss digging more balls contributed to this decrease. Tennessee concluded the match by bringing up their hitting percentage to .462, a sharp contrast to Ole Miss’ .156 on hitting.

The kill leaders of the match were relatively evenly distributed among the Lady Vols front row, with Jenaisya Moore leading the match with 13 kills. Lovett added 11 while Morgahn Fingall and Raeven Chase had nine each. Credit is due towards Caroline Kerr for her ability to connect with each of her hitters and create a good spread.

“I thought she did a really nice job of getting the attackers in rhythm and just making some really good decisions kind of kept it simple,” head coach Eve Rackham Watt said. “And simple doesn’t mean easy. It just means that she made the right decisions at the right time and got the ball to the right people. I thought she did a really nice job and it’s not easy to distribute the ball as evenly as she did. But because she’s such a good setter, she’s capable of making so many sets.” 

Chase proved to be a weapon in the middle, running a powerful slide play with Kerr. Chase had a .571 hitting percentage, which brought up the team’s percentage significantly.

“I think before she was in the lineup we were working really hard to establish it so that when it was her time to get in the lineup, we were gonna have that connection already built,” Kerr said. “I think it’s continuous trust. I think we come to practice every day ready to improve on it and not take it for granted. And so I think she does a great job and she’s always available. So it makes my job a lot easier.”

Consistent passing

The Lady Vols dug significantly more balls than Ole Miss with 45 digs the Rebels’ 27. The Lady Vols couldn’t get much production with blocks in the match, however, their back row defense compensated what blocking lacked. 

“I thought we did a nice job from a side out percentage and took care of the ball pretty well and passed well,” Rackham Watt said. “And so we were able to get all of our attackers involved and obviously hit for a really high percentage.”

Libero Yelianiz Torres and Lovett led the game in digs, with Torres digging 15 and Lovett with 11. Tennessee’s ability to dig more balls, set up their attackers to be able to increase their kill count.

“I think that we’re confident as passers serve receive and defensive-wise, that even if our block wasn’t in the right place, we could work around them today,” Lovett said.

Superior serve game

Torres and Fingall stayed consistent at the serve line, especially during the first set. Torres took the Lady Vols to a 14-3 lead, which created momentum for the Lady Vols to only allow Ole Miss seven points in the first set.

“She (Yelianiz Torres) went back to serve and she went on that long serving run,” Rackham Watt said. “I thought she did a really nice job just moving the ball around, making it tough on their passing unit. I think once one server kind of gets hot it helps everybody go back to the service line, and I think that was really the key to that set, is we served really well.”

The Lady Vols had five aces against Ole Miss and put pressure on its serve receive. Ole Miss struggled to get a good pass off of Tennessee’s serve, which resulted in over passes and defendable balls for UT’s defense.

Tennessee will take on LSU in Baton Rouge on Friday at 8 p.m. ET.