It was a tough road trip for the Georgia volleyball team as they dropped two conference matches to open up divisional play this past weekend.

On Sunday afternoon, the Bulldogs were in Lexington, Ky., to take on the No. 10-ranked Kentucky Wildcats.

After dropping the first two sets 25-14 and 25-23, the Bulldogs (11-7, 2-5 SEC) managed to steal the third set by a score of 25-22, keeping Georgia’s hopes of handing Kentucky (17-1, 7-0 SEC) its first conference loss of the season alive.

That hope was dashed in the fourth set as the Wildcats were able to take the match with a set score of 25-23 behind a .283 hitting percentage and a match high 19 kills.

“This was maybe the most exceptional volleyball that we played this season,” head coach Joel McCartney said. “It wasn’t enough to win, but it was enough to win a lot of matches in this league and this match really could’ve gone either way.”

The Bulldogs were led on the offensive end by junior middle hitter Valentina Gonzalez and freshman outside hitter Briana Bahr who both posted 12 kills apiece in the match while Gonzalez also contributed with a team high seven blocks.

“We came out of an 0-2 hole and had the right kind of energy to win the third set, but we didn’t have quite enough to get it done in the fourth,” McCartney said. “We tip our hats to Kentucky . they’re a top-10 team and they played like a top-10 team.”

The weekend got off to a rough start for the Bulldogs as they were swept in their Friday match against the Tennessee Volunteers with uncompetitive set scores of 25-11, 25-15 and 25-17.

“It was just a really bad outing for our group, and a very disappointing result,” McCartney said. “But we were able to refocus and put up a solid effort [on Sunday], which will hopefully segway into the upcoming weekend.”

The Volunteers recorded 40 kills over the course of the match while Georgia was only able to muster 22 and had just one lead throughout the three sets.

“We’ll be sure to practice with a lot of intensity this week,” McCartney said. “If we play like we did against Kentucky, we feel like we can win some matches this weekend.”