Tennessee volleyball suffered its first loss of the season in conference play as the Lady Vols were swept by Kentucky (20-25, 24-26, 25-27) on Sunday night in Food City Center.
After beating Auburn on Friday night, No. 10 Tennessee (16-2, 7-1 SEC) was not ready for No. 23 Kentucky (8-7, 6-1) and the aggressiveness that they played with after being swept by Tennessee earlier in the season.
“The easiest way to sum it up is that we did not play well,” Tennessee head coach Eve Rackham Watt said. “Good teams can make you do some uncharacteristic things. There were a number of factors that were not working in our favor, and we just did not execute.”
Here are three takeaways from the Lady Vols’ first SEC loss of the season.
Quick turnaround proved costly
After a hard-fought game against Auburn on Friday, Rackham Watt mentioned that the turnaround for the Kentucky game was going to be tough to deal with. She was right.
As soon as the match started, it did not seem like Tennessee was playing with the same energy as Kentucky. The Wildcats had not played since last Sunday and had an entire week to game plan for Tennessee.
“There’s nothing you can do about the fatigue,” Rackham Watt said. “There’s also nothing you can do when you do not get to prepare for a team’s lineup the way that they were able to prepare for ours.”
Kentucky had 52 kills as a team and had three players with at least 10 kills. Tennessee only had Morgahn Fingall reach double-digit kills with 16 to lead both teams. It was not the same balanced offensive attack that Tennessee has shown this season.
“There were a lot of factors,” Fingall said. “The quick turnaround affects recovery, and playing Kentucky is extra tough because of how hard it is to beat a team twice. But I think that quick turnaround will help prepare us for the tournament down the road.”
Lady Vols competed throughout
Despite being swept for the first time this year, Tennessee was never out of the game until the final point was scored. The last two sets went over 26 points, but the Lady Vols were never able to get over the hump.
“I think it goes back to what our true focus is,” Fingall said. “It does not really matter who is on the other side of the net. It just matters how we are playing. What showed up tonight is that we weren’t doing our job.”
The Lady Vols are used to being on the other side of sweeps. The team fought hard to win a set, but Kentucky refused to budge on a single one.
“I told the team after the game that we are way too good of a team to get swept,” Rackham Watt said. “We had chances in the second and the third set, but we dug ourselves too big of a hole.”
First SEC loss is a learning opportunity
Tennessee’s only other loss this season before this game was a close loss to No. 1 Wisconsin in five sets. The Lady Vols have had plenty of experience with winning close sets but have not had as much adversity to learn from this year.
Now that they have a loss on their conference record, the Lady Vols will find out how they will respond to adversity.
“I always say that a loss is never truly a loss as long as you learn from it,” Fingall said. “It is never as bad as it seems, and I think for our team I know we will be tough and use this opportunity to get better. Our goal coming into the season was not to beat Kentucky the second time we played them but to go far into the NCAA tournament.”
