It was a great weekend of volleyball and despite the record I’m incredibly pleased and looking forward to how this team is going to do going forward! Here are some interesting notes about the opening weekend of play vs #6 Illinois.

• Tennessee set a school record for home attendance with 3,342 fans in the stands on Friday. That bests the previous high set in 2005 by 31 people. It’s also the 9th largest crowd to see the Lady Vols play on any court in the rally scoring era. It also tops the 3,014 people Illinois got to come to their home opener on Sunday.
• The two matches were just one minute apart in the length. Friday’s match was 2 hours 55 minutes; Sunday’s 2 hours 56 minutes. Those rank as the 5th and 6th longest matches played in the rally scoring era. Of the six longest UT matches since 2001, two had delays (a fire alarm and evacuation at Auburn in 2008 and a leaky roof necessitating moving the court vs Kentucky in 2007) and the other four have all come under coach Eve Rackham’s tenure.

FRIDAY

• Tessa Grubbs had 29 kills. That’s the 17th most in school history and the 4th most in the rally scoring era. No one has put down more kills than that in a match since 2005.
• Grubbs became the 21st member of UT’s 1,000 kills club.
• Madison Coulter and Sedona Hansen earned 29 digs each. That ties for the 26th most digs in a match in school history. It’s also just the second time in the rally scoring era that two Lady Vols have notched 25 or more digs in the same match. (Chloe Goldman had 40 and Kylie Marshall 26 vs Mississippi in 2007.)
• On top of her 29 digs, Hansen also put up 49 assists — scoring the 3rd 20-20 of her career, and just the 17th by a Lady Vol since 2001.
• Addisyn Rowe led both teams with 6 blocks.
• Illinois’ Jacqueline Quade had the 4th most kills (31) and the 3rd most points (35.5) by an opposing player against UT since 2001.
• The 23-21 fifth set was the highest scoring fifth set in school history. The previous record was 19-17 in a win over Mississippi State in 1997 and a win over Florida in 2012.
• In fact, the 23-21 set was also the highest scoring 15-point set of any kind in school history. Prior to 2001, when all sets were played to 15 points (but using different scoring rules), the most points scored was 20-18, vs Ohio State in 1992 and LSU in 1996.
• This was the 25th match in program history where UT was up 2-0 but ended up losing the match 3-2.

SUNDAY

• In a furious comeback against the #6 team in the country on their home court, it was underclassmen who led the way offensively. Sophomore Danielle Mahaffey and freshman Morgahn Fingall had 11 kills and 3 blocks each.
• Hansen earned the 49th double-double of her career, tying her for third in the rally scoring era with All-American Kelsey Robinson.
• Alyssa Andreno had the most blocks on the UT side with 4.
• For the second match in a row, no one on either side of the court had more digs than Coulter.
• This was the 14th match since 2001 where UT fell behind 0-2 but forced a fifth set. They completed the comeback 8 times, but fell short 6 times.