The Vols defeated LSU in four this evening (25-15, 25-27, 26-24, 25-20), clinching the 30th recorded winning season in program history and the 16th of head coach Rob Patrick’s 20-year career. More tonight…

Tessa Grubbs led the match in kills with 19, almost doubling up her nearest teammate, Raina Hembry, who had 10. Erica Treiber and Kendra Turner were just behind with 9. Treiber hit .400 and had 5 blocks. Grubbs hit .378 and had 3 blocks. Alyssa Andreno hit .375. And Hembry hit .320 with 3 blocks. Sedona Hansen moved into the top ten in UT rally-scoring era double-doubles with her 16th, earning it with 51 assists and 15 digs. Brooke Schumacher, wearing Bridgette Villano’s #8, got a career-high 21 digs.

Tennessee seems to be playing their best games lately against tougher competition. The Vols were down two sets to zero against second place Texas A&M before roaring back and getting one point away from forcing a fifth set. In the end, the Aggies took the match 3-1 (25-19, 25-20, 16-25, 27-25).

Erica Treiber led the team with 10 kills, 7 blocks, and 2 aces. Raina Hembry had 9 kills and 6 blocks. Kanisha Jimenez had 9 kills and 10 digs. Tessa Grubbs had 9 kills. Kendra Turner had 7. Brooke Schumacher dug up 18 balls.

Sedona Hansen put up 43 assists, had 20 digs, and added in 4 blocks. She’s the first Vol since Kelsey Robinson in 2012 to notch 20+ in two different categories. No one since 2007 has done it with assists. It was just the 15th 20/20 performance of the rally-scoring era, and Hansen is just the 7th different person to do it in that time. Hansen also reached the 1,000 assists milestone for the year.

UT’s 6 service errors over 4 sets was their third best outing of the year. While Tennessee allowed the most total blocks from an opponent this year vs the Aggies (and the fourth highest since 2001), they did respond with their second highest blocking total of the season.

The Vols are home this week for matches vs Texas A&M and LSU. Times are a little different than usual. UT plays the Aggies Wednesday at 6:00pm and the Tigers Sunday at 4:00pm.

• UT is 6-8 all-time vs Texas A&M. The Aggies have a six-match winning streak, the last five of which were sweeps.
• UT is 22-37 all-time vs LSU. The teams are 5-5 in their last ten meetings. The Vols are hoping to make it two wins in a row vs the Tigers.
• Texas A&M is receiving votes in the latest coaches poll, and is an unofficial #27.
• After losing their last four in a row the Vols are still seeking one more victory to secure the 30th recorded winning season in program history, and the 16th of head coach Rob Patrick’s 20-year career.
• Three of Tennessee’s final four matches of the season are against teams one game out of leading in the SEC standings.
• The Vols are 7-2 at home this year.

RECORD WATCH: Here’s where the team stands in the statistics with two weeks left in the season. Apologies if I missed anyone.

• Patrick is five victories away from career win #400. With just four games to go this season, that milestone will have to wait until next year.
• Erica Treiber is hitting .349 for the season, which would rank as the 10th best season performance in school history.
• Kelsey Bawcombe’s 0.30 aces per set is the second most by a Vol in the last 13 years.
• Sedona Hansen is 33 short of 1,000 assists, and should be able to reach UT’s season top 20 list. She currently ranks 16th all-time in single-season assists per set with 11.24.
• Bridgette Villano will finish her senior year at #20 in single-season digs per set at UT with 3.21. She’ll also just make the career top ten list in digs with 1,117, and rank #6 in career digs per set with 3.23.
• Brooke Schumacher is currently at #22 in single-season digs per set at UT with 3.11.
• Raina Hembry currently ranks 14th all-time in UT career blocks with 329, and will just miss the career top ten in blocks per set with 0.91.

TEXAS A&M AGGIES

21-5 (12-2) // 11/15 @ 6:00pm ET // Knoxville TN // ESPNU // ONLINE VIDEO // STATS

LSU TIGERS

9-16 (4-10) // 11/20 @ 4:00pm ET // Knoxville TN // STATS

As some of you know, I run another website about presidential elections. As you can imagine, it eats up a lot of my time in the weeks leading up to one. But the latest is finally behind us, and barring any electoral shenanigans, I should be able to put it on the back burner for another four years. Which means more time for volleyball! Thanks for your patience with me through the election and my recent family medical issues.

Did I miss anything while I was gone?

Senior Bridgette Villano is out for the year with an injury. Some future Vols were officially announced by Tennessee this week. It appears UT is in a bit of a slump and on a four-match losing streak. With four more to go they need to win just a single game to assure a winning season, but they might only be favored in one of the remaining matches.

Tennessee’s next match is this Wednesday at 6:00pm at home vs Texas A&M. In fact, every game for the rest of the season is at an odd time so be sure to double check the schedule!

Once again the Vols played tough for awhile vs a top conference opponent but ended up losing the match. This time out the Aggies defeated Tennessee 3-0 (26-24, 25-20, 25-15). After getting no blocks in their previous match, the team had 11 in three sets this time. Erica Treiber hit .353, Sedona Hansen had a double-double, Tessa Grubbs had 14 kills, and Alyssa Andreno and Treiber had 4 blocks each.

Tennessee played the top team in the SEC tough but fell short vs Missouri in four (25-18, 23-25, 25-17, 25-20).  The Vols were in the match until the end despite not getting a single block for the first time in rally scoring era history. 

Tennessee is back in action this weekend against SEC title contenders Missouri and Texas A&M.

• UT is 2-6 all-time vs Missouri. The Tigers have a four-match winning streak.
• UT is 6-7 all-time vs Texas A&M. The Aggies have a five-match winning streak, the last four of which were sweeps.
• Both opponents this weekend are receiving votes in the latest coaches poll. Mizzou is an unofficial #27 and TAMU is #33.
• Tennessee has only eight matches remaining this season. Half of them are against Missouri and Texas A&M.
• The Vols are one victory away from securing the 30th recorded winning season in program history, and the 16th of head coach Rob Patrick’s 20-year career.
• Tennessee has only played a third of their season at home so far this year, but they are defending their turf well with a 7-1 record at Thompson-Boling Arena.
• The Aggies have 17 players on their squad from the state of Texas.

(I run another website, on the history of presidential elections. Due to the upcoming election, updates to this site will be lighter than usual. Look for things to get back to normal here after next week — barring any election surprises.)

It’s about time, for the school and the player! Tennessee finally picked up their first weekly SEC award of the season with Sedona Hansen finally being recognized as the conference Freshman of the Week!

“Hansen led Tennessee offensively in the Vols’ second 2-0 SEC weekend of the season, including their first road win of conference play (3-0 at Alabama). She recorded her 10th double-double of the season at Alabama with 33 assists and 14 digs. Hansen then contributed 42 assists and seven digs in the three-set win over Auburn at Thompson-Boling Arena. She currently ranks third overall in the conference with 11.23 assists per set, the best among freshmen setters.”

After just four home matches in the past 63 days, Tennessee gave the fans at Thompson-Boling Arena something to cheer about with a hard-earned 3-0 victory over Auburn (25-21, 25-23, 30-28). More soon. 

Sorry for the delay in site updates! I got back from a vacation last week, but thave spent the days since working on another website I run. Unfortunately, I’ll need to dedicate even more time to it over the next 16 days or so. However, I’m hoping to be able to keep the updates going here as well. But if I get behind, you’ll know why! As I said, work on the other site should taper off considerably in about two weeks, so any slowdown will be temporary!

UPDATE (10/27): Add a family medical issue to the list of things delaying me from posting updates. On top of the reasons mentioned in the original post, this new issue will take up more of my time this coming week. I still hope to get some things up. But please understand if it is at a slower pace than usual. 

Just a heads up that there will be no updates or notes this week. I’m heading out of town for a few days, though I do hope to be back in time for Tennessee’s match this week against Mississippi.

OK, here’s one quick note for you. The Vols had a program matching long 27 day period between home matches earlier this year. They’re in the middle of another long road stretch right now. Which means from August 27th of this year to October 14th, Tennessee will have played a grand total of two home games in 47 days!

So be sure to come out to root on the team this weekend as they finally get to play in front of the home crowd!

Tennessee fell to Kentucky in Lexington this afternoon 3-0 (25-16, 25-18, 25-16). More soon.

UPDATE: Tessa Grubbs paced the Vols with 10 kills. Erica Treiber had 8, and Raina Hembry, Bri Holmes, and Alyssa Adreno all had 6 each. Sedona Hansen had 32 of the team’s 34 assists. Brooke Schumacher dug up 10 balls.

Tennessee had a season low .139 hitting percentage, while allowing Kentucky a season high .333.

The Vols had no service aces for just the 29th time in the rally scoring era.

UT had only 1 total team block, matching the program’s rally scoring era low.

Due to a miscommunication between the refs, 5’4” defensive specialist Claudia Coco got a chance to play in the front row. She had a block attempt and even got an attack attempt when the ball was set to her!

BOX SCORE // UT STORY // UK STORY

• UT is 29-46 all-time vs Kentucky. The team is 3-7 in their last ten matches and 4-6 in their last ten in Lexington.
• Kentucky has been ranked in 9 of their last 13 meetings with Tennessee. The Vols are 4-5 in those matches.
• The Wildcats have won six straight vs the Vols are are looking to make it seven for the first time since 1992. Tennessee hasn’t won a set vs Kentucky since 2012.
• The UT/UK series is the most played and longest continuously played series in program history. Both sides claim different matches, but according to Tennessee the teams have faced off 75 times since their first meeting in 1973, and have played each other every year since at least 1978.
• Kentucky currently sits atop the SEC standings, but they haven’t ended the season there since 1988.
• UK is on a nine-match winning streak.

KENTUCKY WILDCATS

11-5 (5-0) // 10/9 @ 2:00pm ET // Lexington KY // ESPNU // ONLINE VIDEO // STATS

Tennessee won their last scheduled non-conference match of the season in a sweep of Troy (25-21, 25-23, 25-19). Fifteen of the nineteen players on the squad saw action. Kendra Turner was the only player on either side of the court to reach double-digit kills with 13. She hit .440, had 4 blocks, 5 digs, and an ace as well. Bri Holmes had 7 kills. Raina Hembry had 6 kills and 3 blocks. Nora Reed put down 4 blocks. Sedona Hansen had 27 assists and Brooke Schumacher had 13 digs. Bridgette Villano served up 2 aces, which ties her with Kelsey Bawcombe as the season leader so far.

Tennessee was held to a .217 hitting percentage, the fourth lowest of the season and the lowest in a win. The Vols held Troy to .099, the fourth lowest by an opponent all year.

UT ends up with a 10-3 non-conference record.

BOX SCORE // UT STORY // TROY STORY