Cats claw back, beat LSU in five sets

By T.J. Walker

No. 7 UK’s (20-2, 10-1 Southeastern Conference) win over Louisiana State wasn’t pretty, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t important.

UK took back sole possession of the SEC lead, after giving up the lead in Wednesday’s loss against Tennessee. UK overcame outstanding LSU blocking and notched its 20th win (25-23, 19-25, 16-25, 25-15, 15-12) in front of a rowdy 1,341 fans.

“We realized if we didn’t pick it up, we were going to lose and coming off the loss from Wednesday night’s match we couldn’t lose two times in a row,” junior outside hitter Sarah Mendoza said.

Junior outside hitter Sarah Mendoza, shown here against Tennessee, paced the UK offense with 21 kills on Saturday. Photo by Britney McIntosh | Staff

No. 20 LSU (15-5, 9-2 SEC) had an impressive eight-game winning streak, and before Saturday had only lost one set since getting swept by the Cats on Sept. 20. It appeared early that UK would be LSU’s ninth straight victory, but a team effort brought back the Cats and prevented two straight conference losses.

“I don’t know where to begin in terms of who to give credit to, it was a huge gut check, as well as LSU was playing, putting us in a big hole,” UK head coach Craig Skinner said. “For us to come back like that speaks volumes about our toughness and confidence and I’m very proud of the team.”

UK was led by Mendoza with a game high 21 kills, but thanks to many timely kills from junior outside hitter Blaire Hiler (13 total) UK was able to pull out the win in the fifth set.

LSU had 17 blocks in that match, at times shutting down UK’s hitting attack. However, UK went to a quick set, quick hit strategy that eventually opened up the court and allowed the Cats to finish the game hitting .218.

“Our strategy was to go to the pin early in the match, then as the game went on bring it back to the middle, then we could get our hitters opportunities to score one on one, that was successful later in the match,”  senior setter Sarah Rumely said.

It appeared after the third set that UK might drop its second straight match but the team huddled and after that, the Cats went on to outscore the Tigers 40-27.

“I told the team as players we need to play with more pride, we’re all wonderful athletes, you can’t really win games on pure athletic ability so we needed to play with more heart,” Mendoza said.

That pep talk before the fourth set helped the Cats forget about the Tennessee game and the 2-1 hole the Cats were in.

“We didn’t play all that great vs. Tennessee, but before that fourth set we all pulled together and we knew that we were not going to lose that set,” Rumely said.

With only nine matches left on the year and UK leading the SEC, Saturday’s win might be the key factor in making the Cats dream of an SEC title a reality.

“We have to keep going, we can not let up, not at all,” Hiler said.