The sweep marked Kentucky’s return to the SEC Tournament for the first time since 2005, when the event was last held in Craig Skinner’s first year as Kentucky’s head coach. With the win, UK advances into Monday night’s semifinals, where it will play Tennessee at 6 p.m. with the match televised live on SEC Network.
Kentucky hit .349 for the match, just one point shy of its third-straight match hitting above .350 as a team. UK had DeLeye and Hudson eclipse the 10+ kill mark and Lizzie Carr had eight kills on her 15 swings to hit .400 for the afternoon. Kassie O’Brien ran the UK offense with 42 assists on 46 of Kentucky’s kills in the match as the SEC Freshman of the Year also had 10 digs for another double-double to her name.
UK’s strong defense held the Tigers to .168 hitting for the match, including under .150 for two sets of the match, sets one and three. Molly Tuozzo and Kassie O’Brien both had 10 digs to lead all players for the Wildcats in that category with O’Brien’s three blocks leading UK’s effort in the block department as Kentucky outblocked the Tigers 6-4, with Auburn entering the match as the SEC’s best statistical blocking team. UK had four blocks alone in the third set with two of them belonging to the freshman, O’Brien.
Kentucky was presented with the SEC Championship trophy prior to the match.