Tennessee’s final non-conference match of the season is Wednesday night in Alabama vs Troy. On Sunday the team returns to conference play at Kentucky. Notes for that match will be up later this week.
- UT is meeting Troy for the first time in program history.
- The Vols are 4-2 vs the Sun Belt Conference since 2001.
- Troy is facing their third opponent from the state of Tennessee this season. They were previously swept by both ETSU and Austin Peay.
- Troy is facing their second SEC opponent this season. Mississippi State swept them earlier this year.
- The last time Tennessee travelled to Alabama for a non-conference match was October 18, 1988, when they defeated UAB 3-0.
- The last non-conference team from the state of Alabama the Vols played was Jacksonville State in 2013, in Knoxville. UT lost 2-3.
- Tennessee junior Claudia Coco’s neck of the woods in Georgia is well represented on the Trojan roster. Four Troy players were members of the A5 volleyball club she attended. Of those, one lived in her hometown of Johns Creek and another was a classmate at Chattahoochee High School with her.
We’ve just passed the half-way point of the season. Which seems like a good time to look at a few player stats and see how they might stack up against the record book. Keep in mind these are projections only. As the second half of the season will feature tougher conference opponents, the players may not stat at the pace they did in out-of-confernce play. (I’ll be looking at all-time school records here. At the end of the year I’ll also report how the players did in rally-scoring era records.)
- Sedona Hansen has 578 assists so far this year. At that rate, she could end the year with approximately 1,120, which would be the 17th most in a season at UT. Her 11.33 assists per set currently ranks as the 16th best in a season all-time.
- Erica Triber’s .372 hitting percentage currently ranks as the third best in a season all-time.
- Bridgette Villano’s 3.47 digs per set currently stands as the 18th best all-time in a season. With 1,085 career digs already and at her current pace, she could make the top ten on that list at UT. At 3.27 digs per set, she should finish her career around #6 all-time.
- UPDATE: Missed this one in the original post: Raina Hembry has 305 career blocks and might add 35-50 more the rest of the season. That would put her in the UT career blocks top ten list.
2016 Match Notes: at Troy