KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The Georgia volleyball dropped a three-set, Southeastern Conference Eastern Division match to Tennessee on Friday evening at Thompson-Boling Arena.

The Lady Vols earned the 3-0 victory with set scores of 25-11, 25-15 and 25-17, and they improve to 11-5 overall and 4-2 in league play. Georgia falls to 11-6 overall and 2-4 in conference action.

“I’ll take the heat on this one,” Georgia head coach Joel McCartney said. “There was some risk in the game plan. We knew what Tennessee’s strengths were at the net blocking and we knew what their weaknesses were defensively too that if we got a ball at the net we had this high reach-and-rip mentality. We put targets down early in the week at practice to really place an emphasis on what we wanted to do. We were growing that game plan through the week and it looked like we were going to be able to execute it pretty well, but we’ve got a young group and they had a hard time having confidence to stick with that when things weren’t working well.”

For the match, Tennessee posted a .367 hitting percentage and was led by Kalya Jeter and Chloe Goldman. Jeter recorded a match-best 11 kills on a .611 clip while Goldman tallied a match-best 23 digs.

Georgia’s top performance in the match came from sophomore middle hitter Ann Dylla, who finished with eight kills on a .250 hitting percentage. Redshirt freshman middle hitter Michele Simmons finished second in kills with four. Defensively, the Bulldogs were led by 12 digs from sophomore libero Carla Tietz and 11 digs from junior outside hitter Erika Clark.

In the first set, Tennessee jumped out to an 8-2 lead and then used a five-point run midway through the frame to open a 19-7 advantage en route to taking the set 25-11. The Lady Vols, who never trailed in the set, posted a .280 hitting percentage led by six kills from Nikki Fowler on a .600 clip while the Bulldogs were paced by three kills from Dylla and six digs from Clark.

The Bulldogs picked up the first point in a second set that featured five early ties before the Lady Vols strung together an 11-1 run to open up a nine-point lead at 17-8. From there, Georgia managed to pull within six at 19-13 before Tennessee went on to win the set 25-15 and go up 2-0 in the match. In the set, UT record a hitting percentage of .441 with five kills on a 1.000 clip from Jeter and four kills from both Kylie Marshall and Farren Powe. For UGA, Dylla, Simmons and sophomore setter Kathleen Gates each provided two kills while Tietz tallied six digs.

In the third set, Tennessee used a six-point run to gain a 12-4 advantage midway through the frame and went on to take the set and match 25-17. The Lady Vols hit .355 in the final frame and were paced by another six kills from Jeter. Dylla again paced the Bulldogs with three kills while Gates added six digs.

Up next, Georgia remains on the road for another SEC Eastern Division showdown when it meets 10th-ranked Kentucky (16-1, 6-0 SEC) on Sunday at 1:30 p.m. ET. That match will be a “Dig for the Cure” contest with all proceeds benefiting breast cancer research, treatment and education at UK HealthCare’s Markey Cancer Center. Fans are encouraged to wear pink to the match to support the cause with October being breast cancer awareness month.

- Georgia Sports Communications