Tennessee dropped two tough matches to SEC teams this week dropping their conference record to 2-4. Jena Berg got her eighth and ninth career double-double; Nikki Fowler got her third and fourth. Five players on the Lady Vols roster matched or exceeded career highs.

• Tennessee is 23-37 vs Kentucky.
• Tennessee is 7-14 vs Arkansas.

• Tennessee played only 10 matches in September, going 5-5. The last time the Lady Vols played only 10 matches in September was 2001, when they also went 5-5.

• This week’s two losses were the closest losses of the year for Tennessee. Moving only 4 points against Kentucky would have resulted in a 3-0 win for the Lady Vols, while a 5 point swing would have given them a 3-0 win over Arkansas.

Career bests matched or exceeded this weekend:
• Jena Berg: attacks, assists, and block solos
• Nikki Fowler: kills, attacks, hitting percentage, aces, and digs
• Chloe Goldman: attacks and aces
• Leah Hinkey: attacks
• Farren Powe: kills, digs, and block solos

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

Arkansas claimed their first win in SEC play today 3-2 over Tennessee (32-30, 27-30, 30-27, 20-30, 15-8). Tennessee falls to 2-4 in the SEC.

Despite the loss several Tennessee players had some great numbers. Nikki Fowler and Jena Berg notched double-doubles. Fowler had career highs in hitting percentage, kills, and attacks, and matched her high for aces. Berg, Leah Hinkey, Chloe Goldman, and Farren Powe also matched or exceeded a statistical high.

Audio of Coach Patrick’s comments on the match is available on the official site (though I couldn’t get it to work).The story and the stats (and a few pics) will be posted when they are available.

UPDATES: Tennessee’s story and box score now online. You can also read Arkansas’s version online as well.

Arkansas head coach Chris Poole: “Certainly it was a good win and we’re glad to get that first one. It’s always a good match at Tennessee. They are a very similar team to us in that they are young and are making a lot of unforced errors. This really could have gone either way and we’re glad to get the win.“

I’ve posted a few photos from this game.

Tennessee is in the middle of an almost month long stretch of games where they only get to play at home once. That game is Sunday vs Arkansas. The Lady Vols and Arkansas have posted notes about the matchup on their websites.

• Arkansas (6-9, 0-5): website | notes (PDF)
game time is Sunday, September 30t at 1:30pm ET

• Tennessee’s notes (PDF)

The Lady Vols have not been home since September 16th and won’t be back until October 12th. So be sure to get to Stokely to give them a welcome reception. Tennessee has several ways to help you support the team this week.

• Second Harvest Food Night: Free admission to the match with two non-perishable food items

• Girl Scout Night: $3 admission for Girl Scouts (or just bring two non-perishable food items and get in for free!)

• For the first time this season the game will be available online at the Lady Vols’ official website. No link available yet, so check out the website tomorrow or I’ll try to update here if it becomes available before I leave for the match.

I’ve uploaded the photos I took at the Kentucky game this week. With much better lighting than what’s available at Stokely Athletics Center, these pictures came out much better than my past efforts! Check them out here.

I also wanted to let you know that even though the first game this week was earlier than usual I will still wait to update the stats on the roster page after the Sunday game.

The Lady Vols lost to SEC foe Kentucky 3-1 (30-28, 30-28, 22-30, 30-24 – score corrected!). I’m at the game here in Lexington so look for the story and stats tomorrow (or check out the official Lady Vols site later tonight). Look for ball handling and blocking errors to be a key to the loss.

UPDATE: The story and stats. Looking at the box score, I was right that ball handling and blocking errors were a huge factor in the loss. We had 12 combined in this game – our previous worst was 5! And with Kentucky missing a whopping 17 serves it was our game to lose. But we are a very young team and those things will only get better.

Coach Patrick: “This is another disappointing loss. I felt that we did a good job of carrying out the game plan, but we made too many unforced errors at the wrong times that allowed Kentucky to close some leads in games one and two. We had some opportunities to extend some of those leads and we lost momentum with both hitting and ball-control errors. “

I got some good pics of the game. Apparently lighting is the issue at Stokely, not my camera! I’ll be posting them today.

I’m just about to walk out the door on my way to Lexington for tonight’s match! If you aren’t able to join me at the game there are other ways to follow the action. Free live scores and stats will be available. Or you can watch the match live on the internet with a three-day pass to Kentucky Extreme Access for $9.95.

Tennessee finishes their three game away game run tomorrow in Lexington. The Lady Vols and Kentucky have posted stories about the matchup on their websites.

• Kentucky (12-3, 3-1): website | story
game time is Wednesday, September 26th at 7pm ET

• Tennessee’s story

I’ll be heading to Kentucky for this match so probably will not post anything afterwards until I get back to Knoxville.

Once again, Tennessee won one and lost one this weekend and evened their record to 2-2 in SEC play. Jena Berg got her 6th and 7th career double-double. Six players on the Lady Vols roster matched or exceeded career highs.

• Tennessee is 21-11-1 vs Auburn, winning the last 13 straight.
• Tennessee is 33-23 vs Georgia, losing yesterday for the first time in the last nine meetings.
• Tennessee is undefeated in four game matches this season (3-0).
• The Georgia loss was the first time this season Tennessee has not gone on to victory when winning the first game of the match (5-1).

Career bests matched or exceeded this weekend:
• Jena Berg: assists and digs
• Nikki Fowler: attacks and aces
• Chloe Goldman: assists and digs
• Leah Hinkey: kills and assists
• Jaye Loyd: attacks and aces
• Farren Powe: digs

Double-doubles this weekend:
• Jena Berg: assists and digs vs Auburn
• Jena Berg: assists and digs vs Georgia

Tennessee fought another close battle this weekend but couldn’t come up with the win this time, losing at Georgia 3-2 (25-30, 30-23, 28-30, 30-26, 15-12).

Jena Berg had a double-double with a career high 56 assists and career high 24 digs. Leah Hinkey hit .393 for the match. Nikki Fowler had 3 aces, matching her career best. Three players had double digit digs: Chloe Goldman, Berg, and Kylie Marshall. And four players had ten or more kills each: Hinkey, Mindy Flynn, Fowler, and Yuliya Stoyanova.

More info when available.

UPDATE: The story and stats. I’ll have the stats on the roster page updated sometime on Monday.

Coach Patrick: “This is a tough loss to take. I thought we had some opportunities to take control of the match and we made some errors that stopped some of the momentum we had built up. My hat is off to Georgia. They played very good defense and made us play longer points than I thought we were going to have to play in this match. We will get back in the gym and work on becoming more consistent. What is great about this team is that every one of the players is very coachable. I know that they will work hard to get better as we prepare for Kentucky this week, which makes me very excited about the future of our team “

I’ve had plans to head down to Georgia for this match for some time but, just my luck, car issues came up this week and it had to go in for some major (read: expensive!) repairs. If you can’t make it either there are a couple of ways to follow the match. The most practical way is to use the free live stats page on the Georgia website. Video is available but you’d have to subscribe to Georgia’s sports video service GXtra – and remember to cancel after the match!

In a closely fought match, the Lady Vols are able to get by Auburn 3-1 (27-30, 30-28, 30-25, 30-27). More info as it is available!

UPDATE: More info as promised! It’s nice to see the name “Stoyanova” back in that box hitting over .400!

Coach Patrick: “Winning on the road in the SEC is always a terrific accomplishment, so I am happy that we were able to pull out a victory tonight. I was disappointed, however, in the number of unforced errors that we had which made this match a lot tougher than it should have been. We knew Auburn was going to play great defense and I challenged our team to out-dig them as a goal for this match. We were able to accomplish that, but our other goal was to have less hitting errors and we were unable to do that due to a combination of our inconsistent play and Auburn’s defense.“

Tennessee takes on Auburn tonight at 8pm ET and if you’re not making the trip to Alabama here are two other ways to keep track of the game live. If you’re a subscriber to CSTV XXL you can watch the game live here. For a free option you can follow the game score and stats live here.

Sorry this was posted later than usual. Real life has intruded on my web time this week!

Tennessee continues SEC play this weekend, for the first time this season as the visitors. The Lady Vols and opponents Auburn and Georgia have posted match notes on their websites. The notes include rosters, team information, statistics, and other interesting tidbits.

• Auburn (9-4, 1-1): website | match notes (PDF)
games time is tonight, September 21st at 8pm ET

• Georgia (10-2, 1-1): website | match notes (PDF)
games time is September 23rd at 2pm ET

• Tennessee match notes (PDF)

Tennessee won one and lost one this weekend to even their record to 1-1 in SEC play. Jena Berg got her 4th and 5th career double-double, while Nikki Fowler picked up her first and second. Six players on the Lady Vols roster matched or exceeded career highs.

• Tennessee is 23-11 vs Alabama, but 0-4 in the last four meetings
• Tennessee is 33-6 vs Mississippi State, winning the last 15 straight
• For the third year in a row Tennessee has lost their first home match of the season during the third weekend of September.
• With the victory over Mississippi State the Tennessee volleyball program notched its 700th win.

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

Double-doubles this weekend:
• Jena Berg: assists and digs vs Alabama
• Nikki Fowler: kills and digs vs Alabama
• Jena Berg: assists and digs vs Mississippi State
• Nikki Fowler: kills and digs vs Mississippi State

The Lady Vols defeated Mississippi State 3-1 (30-22, 26-30, 30-20, 30-25) this afternoon, making them 6-3 overall and 1-1 in SEC play. Some stats can still be seen on the Tennessee live stats page. More will available soon.

UPDATE: The story and the box and audio from Coach Patrick. This weekend’s games have been added to the player stats page.