LEXINGTON, Ky. \u2013 No. 7 Texas Volleyball fell to No. 3 Kentucky, 25-23, 25-20, 25-21, on Sunday afternoon in front of 6,147 fans at Memorial Coliseum, the fourth-largest crowd in Kentucky volleyball history.<\/p>\n
Texas (5-5, 1-1 SEC) held leads late in the first and third sets, but Kentucky (10-2, 2-0) closed both frames to earn the sweep.<\/p>\n
Torrey Stafford<\/a> led Texas with 12 kills and six digs, while Cari Spears<\/a> added 11 kills, seven digs and three blocks. Nya Bunton<\/a> collected six kills on .385 hitting and tallied four blocks. Taylor Harvey<\/a> finished with a co-match-high five blocks, and Rella Binney<\/a> recorded 30 assists. Ramsey Gary<\/a> led the Longhorns with 12 digs.<\/p>\n Texas opened the match with a 4-0 run behind a pair of blocks from Bunton and Spears and a solo block from Henley Anderson<\/a>. The Longhorns maintained the lead through the middle of the set and held a 22-21 advantage following a Harvey kill. Kentucky answered with consecutive points to take a 23-22 lead before Spears tied the set at 23-23. The Wildcats then scored the final two points to take the opening set, 25-23.<\/p>\n Kentucky carried its momentum into the second set, building a 16-11 advantage. Texas trimmed the deficit to 16-13 after a Spears kill, but the Wildcats responded with a 5-1 run to extend their lead. Bunton and Anderson each added kills during a late Texas push, but Kentucky closed the set, 25-20, to take a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n Texas jumped ahead 7-4 in the third set and led 8-6 after a Stafford kill. Kentucky rallied to take a 10-9 lead before Texas answered with three straight points, including back-to-back Stafford kills, to move ahead 14-13. The Longhorns later led 15-13, but Kentucky scored five of the next six points to take an 18-16 advantage. Texas continued to battle, pulling within one at 19-18 after a Bunton solo block and tying the set at 19-19 on a Spears kill. Kentucky regained control and held a 23-21 lead before closing the match with the final two points.<\/p>\n The matched marked the Longhorns fifth top-10 matchup of the season and ninth against a ranked opponent.<\/p>\n Texas returns home Friday, Oct. 2, for a matchup with Mississippi State. First serve is set for 6:30 p.m. CT at Gregory Gymnasium. The match will mark Texas’ first home contest in 19 days and its first at Gregory Gym in 30 days, the longest stretches between regular-season home matches and matches at Gregory Gym during the Jerritt Elliott<\/a> era.<\/p>\n Texas Volleyball is Presented by Huntington Bank<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEXINGTON, Ky. \u2013 No. 7 Texas Volleyball fell to No. 3 Kentucky, 25-23, 25-20, 25-21, on Sunday afternoon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-449533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}