Very soon the SEC should be naming their annual player of the year awards. Tennessee has two players with legitimate chances to walk away with one of the honors. Here is how they stack up with what I see as their main competition.

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Just a reminder that Tennessee coach Rob Patrick will appear on WUTK radio every Tuesday night to discuss the team and upcoming matches. The program is at 7:30pm ET on 90.3 FM in the Knoxville area, or you can listen to the station’s live internet feed from anywhere in the world.

Congratulations once again to Nikki Fowler who, for the second week in a row, was named the Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Week! This is the third time this season she has won the honor.

• Opened the weekend with a team-high 17 kills and 51 attacks against UK
• Led UT to victory in its final SEC match of the season at Arkansas and pounded out 22 kills
• Averaged 4.88 kills per game and 3.38 digs per game
• Posted the 10th and 11th double-doubles of her career
• Tallied nine of her 22 kills and seven of her 15 digs against Arkansas in the match clinching fourth game alone
• Finished the week as the team’s top performer in kills (39), kills per game (4.88), attacks (109), points (43.0) and points per game (5.38)

Several players on the Lady Vols squad have made it into the record book already this season. At the end of the year I’ll post all of those. But going into the final match of 2007 this week against Notre Dame there are still a few chances for players to crack the top ten in some category. Some of these are more reachable than others, of course, but all are within the career best of the player.

• Leah Hinkey has 151 blocks on the season, just one short of the top ten in single season blocks. With three blocks she’d be in a tie for 8th. With four she’d tie for 7th. With ten she’d tie for 6th. It would take thirteen blocks to tie for 5th.

• Nikki Fowler currently has 1,044 total attacks this season. With 63 more in the final match she would break into the top ten for total attacks in a season.

• Kylie Marshall has 339 digs this season. With 17 more she would join teammate Chloe Goldman in the top ten for total digs in a season.

Tennessee is closing in on the season’s end. This weekend the team had another win and loss, and also completed their SEC schedule. There were four double-doubles earned and nine of the twelve players who played this weekend tied or exceeded career highs.

• Tennessee is 23-38 vs Kentucky (0-2 this season).
• Tennessee is 8-14 vs Arkansas (1-1 this season).

• This weekend, Jena Berg and Nikki Fowler crossed the 1,000 mark for the season: Berg with 1,013 assists and Fowler with 1,044 attacks.

• Tennessee finished their SEC season 6-14 (.300), their worst record in conference play since going 0-14 (.000) in 1995.

• During the Kentucky match, a leak in the ceiling delayed the game 1 hour and 1 minute. According to UK’s press release, “From start to finish, the match came close to matching the longest contest (by time) in NCAA history. The NCAA records, however, do not account for delays in play. Wednesday’s match took 3 hours and 13 minutes from opening serve to its final point. Hawaii’s win against BYU on Nov. 28, 1998 took 3 hours and 38 minutes.”

Career bests matched or exceeded this weekend:
• Jena Berg: block solos
• Carol Cheade: attacks
• Milan Clarke: attacks
• Chloe Goldman: kills and assists
• Leah Hinkey: kills and attacks
• Laurén LaFlamme: assists, aces, and digs
• Jaye Loyd: kills, attacks, hitting percentage, assists, block assists, and total blocks
• Kylie Marshall: block assists and total blocks
• Farren Powe: digs

Double-doubles this weekend:
• Jena Berg: assists and digs vs Kentucky
• Nikki Fowler: kills and digs vs Kentucky
• Jaye Loyd: assists and digs at Arkansas
• Nikki Fowler: kills and digs at Arkansas

The Lady Vols end their Southeastern Conference schedule on a high note, defeating Arkansas 3-1 (30-28, 28-30, 30-27, 30-22). Tennessee ends up at 6-14 in SEC play.

Congratulations to Chloe Goldman who, with tonight’s 35 digs, becomes only the third player in SEC history to record over 600 digs in a single season! She is the first underclassman to reach the mark.

No other stats or story yet – look for those later tonight.

UPDATE: More info from Tennessee and Arkansas. Besides Goldman’s numbers above, several other players also had a big night:

• Nikki Fowler once again led the team in put-aways, once again notched a double-double, and for the second time this week laid down over 20 kills. With 5 blocks to go along with the kills, she easily led both teams in scoring.

• Milan Clarke had 15 kills on 43 swings – the former just one off her career best, the latter tied for her career best. She had 4 blocks as well.

• Jaye Loyd shattered her match best for assists with 56. With 15 digs as well she gets her first double-double of the year. Perhaps more impressively, the 5′ 5″ sophomore also scored not just one, but two blocks – the firsts of her career! For good measure she also had 2 kills on 4 attacks for a .500 hitting percentage; again, all career bests.

• Leah Hinkey, Farren Powe, and Kylie Marshall continue to raise Tennessee’s blocking game, this time knocking down 7, 6, and 6 blocks respectively. Hinkey also added 14 kills, while Marshall again showed her well-rounded play with 8 kills, 15 digs, and an ace to go along with her blocks.

• Carol Cheade, in her first start of the season, had 6 kills on 14 attacks, 3 blocks, an assist and a dig.

• Lauren LaFlamme beat her career high with 5 digs, and matched highs with an ace and an assist.

I’ve decided that a 10 hour drive is just a little too much for me so I won’t be making the trip to Arkansas today- and with the price of gas now at $3/gallon the decision was made a little easier! If, like me, you’re not making the trip you can still follow the match from home. You can watch the match on the web if you’re willing to pay $5 (just remember to cancel the monthly subscription). Unfortunately, I can’t find a link for free live stats on the Arkansas website. There might be a link available here once the game starts. If not I may subscribe to the video and post score updates here. With what the trip would have cost me in gas, five bucks is a bargain!

UPDATE: Free audio and a running live score are available now that the match has started. Go to this page and click the WATCH link near the top of the article. This will open a media player. Click the tab on the right side marked LIVE. Now if you click the VB VS TENNESSEE – VIDEO text you’ll get a blank video window but have a live scoreboard. Click the VB VS TENNESSEE – AUDIO text to listen to the game free!

If you didn’t make it or were one of the many who left early, two videos and 16 photos from last night’s unforgettable senior night match against Kentucky are now online!

A leak of the roof at Stokely has interrupted tonight’s match. At the moment Kentucky leads 2-1 (28-30, 32-30, 30-19, 6-5). More info when available.

UPDATES: After the long delay, Tennessee ends up falling to the Wildcats 3-1 (final game score was 30-26). Jena Berg had a double-double with assists and digs; Nikki Fowler had one with kills and digs. More info when Tennessee posts it.

For those who haven’t heard, during the fourth game of tonight’s match the roof at Stokely Athletic Center started leaking. The match was halted for a little more than an hour while the net was moved to a dry portion of the floor and tape was laid to create a volleyball court!

Tennessee and Kentucky have the stats and the more-interesting-than-usual stories! I’ll have some photos (and video!) from the match up on Thursday.

The Lady Vols take on Kentucky tonight at 7:00pm ET. Tennessee’s two seniors will be recognized before the match so be sure to come out to Stokely tonight to show your support. Tickets are just $5 for adults, $3 for children, and UT students are free with their student ID. If you can’t make it to the match, keep up with the score and stats or watch the live video of the match.

If you are coming to the match be sure to note that the Tennessee men’s basketball team is playing at 7:30pm. So traffic may be an issue and parking may not be free or as easy to find.

At tonight’s match the Lady Vols will salute their two seniors. Congratulations Yuliya and Joselyn!

2004 LADY VOLS Freshmen
Joselyn Johnson	Yuliya Stoyanova

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The Lady Vols hope to build off their win on Sunday and get their first winning streak since September started when they take on Kentucky in a Wednesday night match. After that they’ll head to Arkansas on Friday night for the last SEC match of the year.

On Wednesday, Tennessee will honor seniors Yuliya Stoyanova and Joselyn Johnson before the game so be sure not to miss that. I’m thinking about making the 10 hour drive to Fayetteville, Arkansas to catch the final away match of the season. With only three matches left this year it’d be a shame to have to miss one. But it would be a daunting drive, so I haven’t decided if I can do it yet!

• Kentucky (20-9, 11-7): website | match notes
In their last match this season
Kentucky won 3-1 (30-28, 30-28, 22-30, 30-24).
Game time is Wednesday the 14th at 7pm ET, in Knoxville.

• Arkansas (12-16, 6-12): website | match notes (PDF)
In their last match this season
Arkansas won 3-2 (32-30, 27-30, 30-27, 20-30, 15-8).
Game time is Friday the 16th at 8:00pm ET, in Fayetteville AR.

• Tennessee match notes (PDF).

In the past two weeks I’ve written a few pieces about some of the players on the Lady Vols roster this season. Since, to be honest, these articles are really nothing more than some of the players’ stats and records dressed up with words rather than just being listed in a chart form, I’ve tried to make them seem a little more personal with a small anecdote of something I’ve noticed about them on the court. Unfortunately I don’t have one for Tennessee’s outstanding hitter Nikki Fowler. After a match I once saw her and a friend from her club days who now plays for Georgia about wrestle each other to the ground in a bear hug! I think I overheard once that someone on the team has nicknamed the 6′ 2″ player “The Giraffe”! And she couldn’t have been nicer signing a ball for me and my daughter after a match this weekend. But that is all off the court. On the court the biggest thing I’ve noticed about Fowler is that even though she is obviously enjoying herself, she is nothing short of a consummate professional. When someone leads a team in almost every offensive category, hearing them called “professional” probably doesn’t seem like too big a deal. So they don’t show off or celebrate after every kill, or as the old sports adage goes, they “act like they’ve been there before”. That’s what you expect from someone good enough to lead a team’s offense. What makes it so refreshing in this case is we’re talking about an eighteen year old freshman.

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With a loss to #8 Florida and a five match victory over South Carolina, Tennessee evened out for the weekend and prevented another five match losing streak. Three players on the Lady Vols roster earned double-doubles; five tied or exceeded career highs.

• Tennessee is 26-24 vs South Carolina (1-1 this season).
• Tennessee is 9-37-1 vs Florida (0-2 this season).

• Tennessee has not won two matches in a row since September 16th and 21st when they defeated Mississippi State and Auburn.

• In the 2005 and 2006 seasons combined the Lady Vols played eight five-game matches and won three of them. This season alone the team has played eight five-game matches and won three of them.

• With 3 matches to go, 559 total digs, and a 5.53 digs per game average, Chloe Goldman is on track to become only the third player in SEC history to reach 600 digs in a single season. She currently stands 7th on the SEC all time single season digs chart. In 1986, Georgia’s Shelly Gross notched 655. This past weekend LSU’s Elena Martinez became the second conference player to ever reach 600, and currently stands at 636.

Career bests matched or exceeded this weekend:
• Jena Berg: attacks, assists, block assists, and total blocks
• Nikki Fowler: kills, attacks, and hitting percentage
• Leah Hinkey: attacks, block assists, and total blocks
• Jaye Loyd: aces
• Farren Powe: kills and attacks

Double-doubles this weekend:
• Jena Berg: assists and digs
• Jena Berg: assists and digs
• Nikki Fowler: kills and digs
• Leah Hinkey: kills and blocks

Congratulations to Nikki Fowler who was named the SEC Freshman of the Week for the second time this season!

• Led Tennessee to victory over South Carolina with a career-high 28 kills
• Two days earlier, she led the team with 10 kills against No. 8 Florida
• Hit a personal best .377 in the win with just two errors
• Added 13 digs as well for her ninth double-double of the season
• Finished the weekend as the team’s top performer in kills (38), kills per game (4.75), attacks (107), hitting percentage (.299), points (39.5) and points per game (4.94)
• Had a perfect passing weekend with no errors in 37 reception attempts and finished third on the squad with 21 digs and 2.62 digs per game over two matches