Gophers season ends after 3-1 loss to Kentucky in NCAA Tournament

The No. 6 seeded Minnesota volleyball team fell to the No. 3 Kentucky Wildcats in four sets (11-25, 25-23, 22-25, 24-26) in the second round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament. With the defeat, Minnesota’s season comes to an end with a 21-11 (13-7 Big Ten) record.

“I think what you want most is to have a chance late and I thought we had a chance late there in that fourth set to send it to five,” said head coach Keegan Cook. “I would’ve liked to see what we could do in a fifth set. I don’t want to think about the things that could’ve been – but just think about this senior class and I brought as many of them up here as they’d let me. What a special group right? They’ve given a lot to the program and some of them joined it in the transition, some of them stayed through it in the transition, but it says everything about them.”

Julia Hanson led Minnesota with 15 kills, 10 digs and four blocks. Lydia Grote went for 13 kills while Mckenna Wucherer had 11. Phoebe Awoleye (six blocks) and Zeynep Palabiyik (15 digs) paced the defense.

The Gophers (21-11, 13-7 Big Ten) were outhit by Kentucky (22-7, 14-2 SEC) .326 to .223. UK led the battle in kills (64 to 49), digs (53 to 31) and aces (4 to 3). Minnesota outblocked UK 12 to 11.

“I have been at Minnesota my whole time in college, so five whole years with Keegan and all the staff that’s been changing,” said senior setter Melani Shaffmaster. “I’ve loved it since I got there, I loved it on my visit a long time ago. I think this year especially, I’ve never been on a team where the team is so good. I’ve been to Sweet 16s and Elite Eights in the past but you just know you are with a really special group when you can just feel it. I think obviously it sucks to lose – but at the end of the day, it was a lot of fun to be with these guys.”

Brooklyn DeLeye led the Wildcats with 22 kills and 11 digs while Megan Wilson had 11 with five blocks. Emma Grome dished out 51 assists with 12 digs.

(Gophers athletics contributed information to this article.)