Senior outside hitter Eva Hudson hammered a Kentucky school three-set record 28 kills Saturday afternoon as No. 6 Kentucky swept Washington 3-0 (25-23, 27-25, 25-21) to conclude non-conference play on the 2025 season.
Hudson’s 28 kills not only set a new program record for the most kills ever by a Kentucky player in a three-set match, but it also marked the first time a player in NCAA Volleyball had 28 kills or more in a three-set match since Cincinnati’s Jordan Thompson had 28 against SMU on Oct. 27, 2019 according to ESPN’s Stats & Research department. The Kentucky record for kills in a three-set match was 22 and it was set by outsider hitter Leah Edmond on Nov. 18, 2018 in a 22 kill performance at Missouri.
Hudson’s 28 kills came with just three errors on 52 swings as she hit .481, the highest hitting percentage for a UK attacker in a single match with 10+ kills all season. She also threw in eight digs and didn’t commit a single reception error in the match despite being served 14 times by the Huskies elite servers.
The Wildcats hit .271 for the match Saturday afternoon as Hudson’s 28 kills were by far enough to tame the Huskies offense, who was held to hitting just .198 on the afternoon with 16 attack errors and eight blocks from the UK defense paced by four players recording two or more stuffs in the match. Kentucky grew into the match as it progressed, winning the first set despite siding out below 60 percent in the first set and ballooning that into a 72 percent number by the time the third set rolled around.
Kentucky with the win Saturday afternoon puts a bow on a 7-2 non-conference slate of matches that ends with wins over teams from the Big Ten, ACC and Big 12 along the way. The Wildcats also notched three top-10 wins in the non-conference, with wins over No. 3 Louisville, No. 5 Penn State and No. 10 SMU along the way. UK will enter Southeastern Conference play this week, kicking off Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET for a match against South Carolina inside Historic Memorial Coliseum. The match will be televised by SEC Network and stream live on the ESPN app and Disney+.
Courtesy: UK Athletics
