Tide Volleyball Earns Thrilling 3-2 Victory Over Kentucky
10/19/2007 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. ?? The Alabama volleyball team earned a crucial conference victory in thrilling fashion, defeating Kentucky 3-2 (30-22, 30-23, 23-30, 23-30, 15-12) Friday evening from Coleman Coliseum. Four Tide players tallied double-digits in kills as Alabama improves to 11-9 overall and 8-3 in SEC play.
Alabama raced out to an early 2-0 lead but Kentucky (16-6, 7-4 SEC) rallied back. In the decisive game-five the Tide took control and earned three-straight points to down the Wildcats 15-12 and wrap-up the match
“First thing I want to say is that Kentucky is a very good volleyball team,” head coach Judy Green said. “After we won the first two games we knew they were going to make a change in how the attacked us and they stepped up their passing. I think for our team, we also made some strings of errors in those games that we didn’t make in games one and two. Once we got to the fifth game though there was a different look in our team’s eye.”
Crystal Hudson and Bridget Fuentez tied for the team-high in kills with 18. Fuentez added 14 digs while Hudson shot at a .395 clip.
On the night Brigitte Slack was honored for eclipsing the 5,000 assist milestone, the senior setter added 55 more to her credit to go along with 10 digs.
Liz Salstrand added 10 kills while Brooks Webster tallied 13. Lindsay Buteyn contributed six block assists while Megan Hudson chipped in 12 digs and libero Amy Pauly had a team-high 20.
“I felt like this week in practice we prepared for this situation,” coach Green said. “ I think we knew exactly what we were going to do going into that game and we did what we wanted to do. We wanted to close it out. We knew this was probably going to be a five-gamer. There were two great volleyball teams playing tonight.”
Alabama shot .531 in game one and used an 11-3 run to take the early 1-0 lead. In game two, the Tide again wrapped up the game with a late 6-1 run to head into the locker room with a 2-0 lead.
Kentucky then shot .317 in game three and .375 in game four to push the match to a crucial game-five.
In the final game, Alabama held Kentucky to a .160 hitting percentage and used an early 8-3 cushion to earn the win. The Wildcats pulled to within one at 13-12 but two straight Kentucky errors sealed the deal for Alabama.
Nicole Britenriker led all players with 22 kills and added 13 digs. Queen Nzenwa chipped in 15 kills for the Wildcats. Sarah Rumely recorded 60 assists and 13 digs.
Alabama will continue the second half of its conference slate against Tennessee. Game time is scheduled for Sunday, October 21 at 1:30 p.m. from Coleman Coliseum.
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