Lady Vols Sweep Auburn

The No. 22 University of Tennessee volleyball team posted a dominating performance on Friday night, tallying its highest team hitting percentage in almost five years, holding Auburn to its lowest attack average of the season and trailing for a total of one point in a 25-17, 25-16, 25-16, triumph in front of 1,064 pink-clad UT faithful at Thompson-Boling Arena.
The Lady Vols also helped to raise over $1,330 for breast cancer research as the match was their designated "Dig for the Cure" event in coordination with the Knoxville affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The UT players wore pink and white uniforms during the contest thanks to a generous donation by Comcast.
"We are excited and proud to partner with Susan G. Komen for the Cure," UT Head Coach Rob Patrick said. "This is a very important part of what we do with the women's athletic department at the University of Tennessee. We are proud that we are able to partner with them and help raise money to help them beat this dreaded disease. We are excited that so many people came out to be a part of not just a volleyball match, but an entire evening dedicated to breast cancer awareness."
With the win, the Big Orange improved to 18-5 overall, 9-4 in the Southeastern Conference and 10-1 at home, while the Tigers dropped to 16-9 on the year and 7-6 in league play. UT hit .423 as a team with 48 kills and a season-low seven errors, while holding Auburn to a .082 hitting percentage.
"Our team is really gelling right now and I am very excited about that," Patrick said. "Offensively, we've been able to do a lot of different things with our hitters. I think we have put our hitters in good spots, our passing has been spot on and we've been able to utilize three and four hitters. Our setters are doing a great job of delivering balls to the right people at the right times."
The Tennessee attack average marks its highest since it hit .467 against Alabama on Nov. 11, 2005. UT's previous high this season also came against Auburn when it notched a team hitting percentage of .421 on Sept. 26.
Sophomore Leslie Cikra paced the offensive onslaught with a match-high 10 kills on .474 hitting as she had just a single attack error in 19 swings. The Chagrin Falls, Ohio, native also picked up a pair of blocks and two digs in the victory.
"She is just getting more and more comfortable playing that outside/right-side hitter position," Patrick said. "She's a player we moved from the middle hitter position when she first came to Tennessee, so everything she does just gives her more experience in a new position.
She is working very hard, presents the opposing team with a huge block to try to hit against and she really hits the ball at the peak of her swing and that is hard to defend when she contacts the ball over 10 feet."
Right on Cikra's heels, however, were UT middle blockers Leah Hinkey and DeeDee Harrison who threw down identical stat lines with nine kills and just one error on 14 swings for a remarkable .571 hitting percentage.
Hinkey, a fifth-year senior, added three blocks, while Harrison, a redshirt sophomore, had one as well.
"Our middles have done a really nice job of moving the ball around to get past the block and taking care of the sets that may not be perfect and keeping it in play so that they get another chance later," Patrick said. "They have been driving really hard, in terms of moving to get a swing. Middle hitters are the hardest working players on the team. They have to be because they are moving from sideline to sideline and attacking on every point. They have been working hard and it is paying off for them offensively."
Helping the offense run so smoothly were setters Emily Steinbeck and Kylann Scheidt who combined to assist on 37 of Tennessee's 48 kills, with Scheidt collecting 22 helpers and Steinbeck adding 15.
Defensively, senior Nikki Fowler topped the Lady Vols with 13 digs to go along with five kills, while junior Kayla Jeter notched totals of six kills, six digs and three blocks.
Overall, the Big Orange topped Auburn in almost every statistical category, gathering more kills (48-27), more assists (39-21), more digs (46-35) and more blocks (9-0) in its dominating performance against the Tigers.
Also of note was the fact that Tennessee crossed the 10,000 mark in home attendance for just the second time in school history with a crowd of 1,064 on Friday night. The Lady Vols have had 10,691 fans pass through the turnstiles at Thompson-Boling Arena this season. That number trails only last season's total of 11,585. Friday's crowd was the fifth to surpass the 1,000 mark for UT this season and 12th all-time in school history.
Tennessee cruised to victory in the opening frame against Auburn, getting multiple kills from five different players and hitting .433 as a team en route to a 25-17 triumph. Hinkey and Harrison led the way with four kills on five swings each. Robinson and Fowler paced the effort on the defensive end with five digs apiece.
With the score tied at 4-4 early on, the pink-clad Lady Vols took full control of the frame with a 9-2 run, capped off by a six-point spree, that put them up by a commanding seven-point margin at 13-6.
Harrison and Robinson got things started, sandwiching kills around an Auburn attack error to go ahead 7-4. Although a Lady Vol service error gave the ball back to the Tigers, UT grabbed it right back two plays later thanks to another big putaway by Robinson. Back-to-back Auburn miscues gave the Big Orange two more points and Harrison followed with a kill and a block, teaming up with Jeter, to put Tennessee ahead 12-6 and force AU head coach Wade Benson to burn his first timeout.
The tactic did little to slow down UT, however, as Jeter notched a blast from the outside right out of the break to finish off the run. Neither team would make much of a move for a while, until the Lady Vols really broke the stanza open with a 5-2 spurt that gave them a 23-14 advantage.
Up by five at the 18-13 mark, Cikra hammered out consecutive kills to move the lead to seven. After an attack error, Harrison got UT back on track with a monstrous slam that she angled to the back-left corner of the court, prompting Auburn's second timeout.
Once again, the short break did not stop Tennessee's momentum in the slightest bit as Jeter and Hinkey joined forces to stuff a swing by Camila Jersonsky and Hinkey took a set from Steinbeck and punched it home for a kill to move the Big Orange within two points of victory, up
23-14. Just moments later, an Auburn service error and a putaway by
Fowler brought the frame to a close.
Another all-around effort helped the Lady Vols cruise to a 25-16 win in the second set, during which they led wire-to-wire. UT's offense pounded out 16 kills and hit at a .333 clip, while the defense scooped up 21 Auburn attacks, blocked two others and held the Tigers to just seven kills and a -.053 hitting percentage.
Much like the opening set, Tennessee used a long run to jump ahead early and never looked back. With the scoreboard reading a 6-6 deadlock early on, the Big Orange made a point to change that, taking advantage of four Auburn miscues in the span of just six plays to go ahead 12-6.
The Tigers weren't going to go down that easily, however, quickly moving back within a single score with a 6-1 spree of its own. UT wasn't going to let them complete the comeback though, immediately answering with five straight scores to dash AU's hopes.
Leading 14-13, the Lady Vols started to get on a roll thanks to a cross-court shot by Robinson. Following an Auburn attack error, Harrison blasted one off the Tiger block and down for a kill to force AU into a timeout. Just seconds after the break, Robinson kept the UT run alive with her second putaway in four plays. Another Tiger mistake then finished off the spree, giving the Big Orange a comfortable 19-13 lead to play with.
After trading the next three scores, Tennessee finished off the set with a 5-2 spurt. Cikra sparked the run with a hammer from the right side and Scheidt followed with the first kill of her career as she dug an Auburn smash over the net into the back-right corner of the court on Auburn's side of the net. UT then ended the stanza with a kill by Jeter, a block by Cikra and Hinkey and the Tiger's ninth attack error of the set.
The Big Orange continued its dominance in the third set as its offense blasted away to the tune of a .536 team hitting percentage in another 25-16 victory that sealed the sweep. The squad had just one attack error while recording 16 kills, led by four from both Harrison and Hinkey and three by Jeter.
Tennessee's only deficit of the entire match came early in the set as Auburn claimed a quick 3-2 advantage. It would last for just that one point though as the Lady Vols took it right back with a kill by Jeter and a Tiger error. Those two scores marked the beginning of a 7-2 run that put UT ahead 9-5.
Auburn would score three straight to rally within one at 9-8, but the Big Orange offense proved to be too much for it to handle as a kill by Cikra and back-to-back blasts by Hinkey stopped the comeback attempt in its tracks.
Once again, the Tigers would try to mount a comeback, scoring on the next two plays, only to see Tennessee do them one better and tally three straight points on a hammer by Jeter, a block by Jeter and Hinkey and an AU ball-handling error that put the score at 16-11.
The Lady Vol lead would still be five when it reached the 21-16 mark late in the frame after a kill by Auburn's Katherine Culwell. That would prove to be the Tigers' final score of the evening, however, as UT closed out the contest on a 4-0 run featuring two kills by Harrison, another by Robinson and an error by Culwell.