University of Tennessee Athletics
University of Tennessee
Georgia
Balanced Attack Leads No. 22 Lady Vols Past Georgia
October 31, 2010 | Volleyball
Oct. 31, 2010
By Cameron Harris, Assistant Media Relations Director
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - On a day in which it broke the school's single-season attendance record, the 22nd-ranked University of Tennessee volleyball team utilized the balanced offensive attack that has become its trademark in recent weeks to finish off a weekend sweep with a dominating, 25-20, 25-19, 25-13, victory over Georgia on Sunday afternoon at Thompson-Boling Arena.
With 922 Orange and White-clad fans on hand, the Big Orange moved its total home attendance to 11,613 this season, breaking the previous record set last year with two home contests still remaining on the schedule. UT is averaging 968 fans per match during the 2010 campaign, up from last year's record of 772.
"I've said this over-and-over, but I truly believe that we have the best fans in the nation," UT Head Coach Rob Patrick said. "For them to come out and support us like they have this season speaks a lot to that. Breaking our attendance record this early in the season is also a by-product of the extremely hard work so many people in our athletic department have put in to promote and market our program and help grow interest in the sport of volleyball throughout Knoxville and all of East Tennessee."
For the 14th time this season, the Lady Volunteers had six players record at least four kills on Sunday as they improved their overall record to 19-5, including a 10-4 mark in Southeastern Conference action. The Bulldogs, meanwhile, dropped to 11-14 on the year and 3-11 in league play.
"This was a great win for us," Patrick said. "I thought Georgia had a great game plan for us and played very hard in terms of their defensive intensity. It took a lot for us to get a kill against them. I was very happy with how our team responded to that defensive pressure Georgia put on us. Maybe we didn't get a kill on our first or second swing, but we kept at it and didn't get frustrated. That is something we've gotten better at as the year has gone along.
"First of all, we are passing the ball really well and have three options almost every time we are setting the ball. Georgia really hammered their serves so I was excited that we were able to withstand that barrage. Our setters just continue to get better. They are doing a nice job of setting the tempo of our offense and doing a fantastic job of moving the ball around and finding their hitters in transition and giving them very hittable balls.
"We were also really serving tough and serving the zones we needed to, which helped us get them off balance a little bit. They have two great middles that nobody in the conference has really been able to stop. We slowed them down just a little bit, but our serving really helped in that.
"I also thought our blocking was very good. We had a game plan for Georgia and I thought our players did a fantastic job of executing that game plan. One stat that doesn't show up is how easy some of the digs we had were because of our block. Because we set such a good block and made Georgia hit around us, we were able to dig the ball a little bit easier."
Junior Kayla Jeter was the team's top offensive performer, tallying 11 kills and hitting at a solid .417 clip with just a single error in a team-high 24 swings. The Solon, Ohio, native also added six digs and three blocks to UT's winning effort.
Senior Nikki Fowler and freshman Kelsey Robinson were not far behind though, with both narrowly missing double-doubles. Fowler finished with nine kills on .471 hitting (9-1-17) with seven digs, while Robison recorded a match-high 11 digs to go along with nine kills, a career-high tying .438 attack average and two blocks.
Also standing out on the stat sheet was sophomore Leslie Cikra. Fresh off an 11-kill performance against Auburn on Friday, the 6-4 outside hitter posted seven more kills in addition to a match-high four blocks, which ties her season high. Joining her with four putbacks was fellow classmate DeeDee Harrison who also had five kills and two digs on the afternoon. Senior Leah Hinkey rounded out the strong Lady Vol performance with six putaways, a .308 hitting percentage and three blocks.
The Orange and White opened up the match with a dominating performance in the first set as it led from start-to-finish in a 25-20 victory. UT out-hit Georgia, .314 to .188, led by four kills each from Fowler and Cikra. Fowler did so on just five errorless swings for a remarkable .800 hitting percentage.
The Lady Vols wasted precious little time grabbing the momentum, winning the first four points of the contest thanks primarily to the efforts of Hinkey and Cikra. Hinkey kicked off the match with a blast straight down the center of the court and then teamed up with Cikra to stuff an attack by Georgia's Kathleen Luft. Following a Bulldog miscue, Cikra finished off the run with a monster blast over the right-side block.
UGA would not give in without putting up a fight, however, as it slowly worked its way back within striking distance, eventually moving within a single score at the 15-14 mark. A kill by Fowler, a solo block by Robinson and a Bulldog attack error would extend Tennessee's lead back to four though.
Georgia answered immediately, however, with three straight scores of its own to cut its deficit to just one point again at 18-17. The Lady Vols finally decided they had seen enough at that point and proceeded to finish off the frame with a 7-3 spurt that included six kills from five different players, capped off by a hammer off the right hand of Jeter.
The Big Orange got a bit of a wake-up call in the second stanza, falling behind by as many as four before rallying to pick up a 25-19 triumph to take a two-set lead into the locker room at intermission. UT pounded out 18 kills in the frame, led by four each from Jeter and Harrison and three apiece from Hinkey and Fowler.
Undeterred by the first set loss, Georgia raced out to a quick 10-6 advantage, prompting an early timeout by Patrick to steady his troops. The tactic netted three straight scores, with Jeter sandwiching a pair of kills around a putaway by Fowler, to move the Lady Vols back within one at 10-9. The Bulldogs answered right back though with a 4-1 run of their own to regain their four-point lead at 14-10.
At that point, however, Tennessee finally started to find its rhythm, scoring five of the next six points to tie the frame up at 15-15 on a huge block by Robinson and Harrison. Once again though, Georgia took the lead right back with Valentina Gonzalez recording a kill from her middle hitter position.
Down by one with the scoreboard reading 16-15, that would be the last time the Orange and White would trail all day as it proceeded to rattle off four consecutive scores to take a lead it would not relinquish. Harrison simply took over for UT, tallying three kills in that four-play span to give her team a 19-16 advantage.
After a timeout by Georgia head coach Joel McCartney netted a point for his squad, Georgia gave the ball right back to the Lady Vols with a service error. Jeter would capitalize with a cross-court kill to put UT up by four at 21-17. Although UGA's Ann Dylla responded with a kill of her own, Jeter got the point back on the next play with a sharp solo block on another swing by Dylla. Back-to-back hammers by Hinkey, a UGA kill and a Bulldog attack error brought the set to a close with UT ahead by six.
Following the intermission, Tennessee came out and posted its most complete effort of the afternoon and maybe of the season, hitting .619 as a team (13-0-21) and refusing to allow Georgia to score consecutive points even once in a 25-13 victory that sealed the Lady Vols' second straight sweep.
Robinson paced the attack with a perfect four kills on four swings, while Jeter recorded a stellar .714 attack average with five putaways on seven errorless attempts. UT sided out at a perfect 100 percent for the frame, scoring points all 13 times Georgia served the ball.
Much like the initial set of the contest, the Big Orange raced out to a quick lead and never looked back. Jeter got the ball rolling for Tennessee, knocking out a pair of kills in the first three plays. UT got its other point on a Bulldog attack error as it staked claim to a 3-0 lead.
From there, the Orange and White would simply cruise to victory, answering every Georgia score with at least one, and usually two, of its own. With a 22-13 lead in hand, Jeter decided the match had gone on long enough and scored consecutive points. The first came on a laser down the left-side of the court and the second saw her join forces with Hinkey to send back an attempted setter dump by Kathleen Gates. A Bulldog attack would sail long on the final play of the match.
Tennessee will return to the road next weekend to take on Alabama and Mississippi State. The Lady Vols will square off against the Crimson Tide at 7 p.m. CT in Tuscaloosa on Friday, Nov. 5, before making the trek to Starkville for a 1:30 p.m. CT contest against the Bulldogs two days later.
For the most up-to-date information on the Lady Vol volleyball team, make sure you follow @UTLadyVols and @UTVolleyball on Twitter.
