SAVANNAH, Ga. – The top-seeded Kentucky Volleyball team beat eighth-seeded Auburn 3-0 (25-15, 25-20, 25-22) in three sets Sunday afternoon in the 2025 SEC Volleyball Tournament quarterfinals behind 15 kills from Brooklyn DeLeye and a 13-kill, no-error performance by Eva Hudson.
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 the winner of (4) Tennessee and (5) Florida at 6 p.m. ET with the match televised live on SEC Network as Eric Frede, Emily Ehman and Michella Chester will have the call.
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.
Set 1
Kentucky hit .297 and won the first set with a 25-15 triumph over the Tigers. Kassie O’Brien dished out 13 assists for the Wildcats as Brooklyn DeLeye had five kills and Eva Hudson had four kills in the opening frame as two of the five different Wildcats who put up a kill to their name in the set. UK held Auburn to a .111 hitting percentage for the set with UK outdigging the Tigers, 20-14. Auburn took an early timeout with Kentucky on a 5-0 run to take a 9-4 lead in the beginning stages of the frame. Auburn then found itself on the receiving end of a 4-1 UK run and the Tigers asked for time with the Kentucky lead at 17-10. The Wildcats rode the arms of DeLeye and Hudson to grow the lead even more out of the timeout as it was 21-11 following a Kennedy Washington kill out of the middle for her third termination and UK arrived at set point leading, 24-13 and after AU sided out and got a point on its serve, a kill from Brooklyn DeLeye closed the set and Kentucky took a 1-0 lead in the match with a 25-15 opening set victory.
Set 2
After Auburn took a 15-14 lead going into the media timeout of the second set, it was a 3-0 run out of the stoppage that pushed Kentucky into the lead for good as the Wildcats won a 25-20 second set to take a 2-0 lead overall in the match. Kentucky continued to club the ball well at a .371 rate for the set with 16 kills to just three hitting errors in the frame with Kentucky raising its match-long hitting percentage to .333 after the second set. UK held Auburn to .265 for the set on 24 kills to five errors and each team recorded a block in the set that was primarily dominated by both side’s offenses. Craig Skinner won his 25th challenge of the season to push the Kentucky lead to 18-16 on a net fault and that lead doubled to four on a kill from Eva Hudson out of the back row to make things 20-16 as Auburn called its first timeout of the set, down a set-high four points. Kentucky then went on another extended run in the late parts of the frame to make things 24-18 and as UK pushed things to set point, AU called its final timeout. Kentucky then sided out on the third set point to close things out, 25-20. Brooklyn DeLeye became the first player to cross into double-digit kills with 11 through two sets and Kassie O’Brien had a match-high 28 assists.
Set 3
Kentucky hit .382 in the third set to push over the finish line and close out the match in three sets, although set three was the tightest of the day. The Tigers jumped out to a 5-2 lead, with its three-point lead the largest of any point in the match to that point. The lead was trimmed to one at 7-6 before UK got a transition kill from Asia Thigpen to get the set back on level terms. Kentucky had to call its only timeout of the match at 15-15 after UK had jumped out to a 15-12 lead and pushing the Tigers into their first timeout three points earlier. The two teams exchanged timeouts through the end of the set before back-to-back UK kills in out-of-system balls pushed the Wildcats into a 21-19 lead and AU called its final timeout. Auburn punched back to tie things at 22-22 but it was a 3-0 run to close the match by Kentucky that saw the end of the set as UK won in three sets with a 25-22 final set victory.
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