WKU Volleyball: Lady Tops Can’t Finish Off UK As Season Comes To Close
The Lady Toppers saw their season come to a close on Saturday after falling to the fourth-best volleyball team in the country in five sets, 25–16, 25–22, 19–25, 21–25, 12–15, to see their season come to a close.
The Lady Tops took the first set, 25–16, but the Wildcats cameback to match WKU point for point through the first six of the set and it was that close all the way through.
Kentucky took a 20–17 lead in the second set, but the Lady Tops rattled off four straight points to take a 21–20 lead, and scored four of the next six points to take the second set, 25–22.
The Tops and Cats went point for point again in the third set before the Wildcats went on a 6–0 scoring run to take a 21–16 lead, forcing the Tops to call timeout. WKU kept it competitive the rest of the set, coming within 24–19, but the Cats took the third set, 25–19.
In the set, the Lady Tops hit just .088 while UK hit .308, something the six-point run certainly helped.
Kentucky took the fourth set, 25–21,in a set that was just about as even as could be — it was an early three-point run for the Cats that ended up being the difference. It was a set that saw the Tops hit .323, but Kentucky posted a .440 hitting percentage, which is hard to slow down.
The Cats jumped out to a 4–0 lead in the fifth set before calling a timeout to try to stop the momentum. The Lady Tops rattled three points in a row out of the timeout, and were able to fight back to tie the match late at 12–12, but the Cats got the final three points of the match to take the fifth set, 15–12.
UK outhit WKU, .313-.268, but aside from that, the match was about as even as you could imagine.
Alyssa Cavanaugh paced all hitters with 23 kills and Jessica Lucas finished with 51 assists.
It’s a tough loss to swallow for WKU, especially considering they were up two sets to none, and that elusive second weekend in the NCAA tournament will have to wait another year. But, tonight showed that this team could go toe to toe with any team in the country, and will it sucks seeing Cavanaugh and Lucas play their last game, if the Lady Tops can reload and carry on this momentum, next year could be special.
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