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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Lizzie Carr signed autographs for fans after UK’s exhibition match with Louisville earlier this month. (Larry Vaught Photo)<\/p>\n
Kentucky volleyball lost several players off last year\u2019s team that lost to Texas A&M in the national championship game but coach Craig Skinner also retained his star players \u2014 something that is not guaranteed in today\u2019s college athletics world.<\/p>\n
All-American Brooklyn DeLeye, one of the nation\u2019s best players, returned for her senior season. So did Lizzie Carr, a transfer from Purdue last year who can give UK a dominating presence in the middle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019re very competitive and very loyal people at the same time, and very giving of themselves to something bigger than just a game,\u201d Kentucky coach Craig Skinner said. \u00a0\u201cIf it was just wins and losses or external factors, and maybe they don\u2019t (come back). It\u2019s internal for them, and who they believe in, and what they believe in, and what\u2019s going to set them up for success in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlways appreciated their ability to make people around them better. That takes a lot and it gives us a lot of joy to see people like that excel at the highest level.\u201d<\/p>\n
DeLeye and Carr can also help set the tone for \u00a0UK\u2019s new players. Two freshmen \u2014 Bellamie Beus and Sidney Burley \u2014 are already on campus. Burley is a 5-foot-8 defensive specialist from Minnesota while Beus is a 5-foot-10 outside hitter from Idaho.<\/p>\n
Skinner says both do a lot of things well and have athletic ability.<\/p>\n
\u201cExperience-wise, they have a long way to go,\u201d Skinner said. \u201cThey have the potential to do some great things. They know what it feels like to be here. You have no idea what it feels like when you\u2019re in club or high school (volleyball). Now the effort comes in the summer to prepare themselves for August.\u201d<\/p>\n
Again Kentucky will face a loaded non-conference schedule with matches already announced against Wisconsin, Louisville, Pittsburgh, UCLA, Penn State, North Carolina, SMU and Purdue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lizzie Carr signed autographs for fans after UK’s exhibition match with Louisville earlier this month. (Larry Vaught Photo)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-219125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}