Lady Vols win first outright SEC regular-season volleyball title

Revenge is sweet.

An SEC championship is too.

Tennessee got both as it topped Kentucky in four sets at Thompson-Boling Arena Wednesday night to clinch the volleyball program's first outright SEC regular-season title, 28-30, 25-20, 30-28, 25-18.

"The one thing I told them in the locker room: don't take this for granted," said UT coach Rob Patrick. "We have a lot of freshmen on the team, so they just say, 'Oh gosh, this is what we do, right?' Yeah, but there's a lot of work that the upperclassmen put in over the last year to make this happen. I just want to make sure they know how hard this is."

Junior DeeDee Harrison's kill capped a 17-5 run by UT to win the third straight set.

"I love being those situations," said Harrison. "The fact that my team trusts me to get those type of things done is humbling for me.

"I was just like, 'Hey, why not get a kill on championship point?' Who doesn't want to put that in their memory book?"

In the final set, the No. 15 Lady Vols (27-3, 19-1) were down 7-3 early after a 5-0 UK run, but scored six straight to take a 16-15 lead and get back in it.

Patrick and the team constantly preach taking it one point at a time, but as the fourth set wore on, knee stomps got harder, jumps got higher and the cheers got louder as UT came closer and closer to the win.

"When you come back from 11-15, and you tie it, you're just like, 'They can't stop us,'" said Harrison, who had 15 kills. "We stopped ourselves, honestly. So there was nothing they were doing that we couldn't handle."

Tennessee avenged its only conference loss to No. 16 Kentucky (26-5, 17-3) in Lexington on Oct. 12. The Lady Vols have now won 12 straight and finished the regular season undefeated at home.

Junior Kelsey Robinson finished with a match-leading 26 kills, and added 13 digs. Freshman Tiffany Baker also added 12 kills and 11 digs.

"I think the biggest thing was this was a team win," said Robinson. "Basketball, someone can take over. Football, you have a great quarterback, they can take over. But volleyball, you can't hit if someone doesn't pass. It's the biggest team sport."

In a tight first set with 13 tie scores, the Lady Vols led by as much as four late in the match, but couldn't convert on four set points, dropping their only set of the night.

Tennessee earns an automatic birth into the NCAA tournament with the conference title. The selection show is on ESPNU Sunday at 6 p.m. UT will likely host first and second round matches.