The Wildcats had not gone to a fifth set all season, and in their first one, it was the Gators who came out on top.
No. 7 Florida volleyball (12-1, 3-0 SEC) defeated No. 3 Kentucky (11-3, 3-1) in five sets (22-25, 29-27, 25-21, 21-25, 15-8) for its 10th straight win Sunday night at the O’Connell Center.
The victory, which stopped UK’s 29-match league regular-season winning streak, moved the Gators to 54-26 all-time against the Wildcats, who have won nine straight SEC championships from 2017-25.
Kentucky’s only losses came against now-No. 2 Pitt on Aug. 23 and No. 5 SMU on Sept. 12 at the Paradise Invitational in Nassau, Bahamas.
The Wildcats broke out to an early lead, with the first set decided at the service line.
Florida and Kentucky each committed five service errors, but the Wildcats separated themselves with four aces while the Gators had none.
Florida led 12-9 before Kentucky outside hitter Brooklyn DeLeye brought the Wildcats back with three straight aces. Setter Kassie O’Brien added an ace, as Kentucky eventually took the first set, 25-22.
The Gators answered in a tightly contested second set.
Florida trailed 21-17 before fighting its way back. Logan King tied the set at 22 with a kill before following it with a service ace.
Neither team could pull away from there.
Kamryn Chaney delivered several key kills late, including back-to-back ones that put Florida ahead 27-26. After Kentucky tied it, setter Taylor Parks won a joust at the net to give the Gators another set point.
Chaney closed it out with her seventh kill of the set to give Florida a 29-27 win.
“It really is just my teammates,” Chaney said about her success. “They are just the most competitive and amazing girls I’ve been able to work with. They give me so much confidence when I’m playing.”
The Gators carried that momentum into the third. With the score tied at 13, Florida went on a four-point run and eventually pulled away for a 25-21 victory to take a 2-1 lead.
Kentucky responded in the fourth.
Florida hurt itself with five attacking errors and four service errors in the set, while Kentucky committed just three attacking errors and one service error. The Wildcats won 25-21 to force a deciding fifth set.
It was Florida’s first fifth set since its only loss of the season at Wisconsin on Sept. 2.
Kentucky took an early 4-2 lead, but Florida quickly flipped the momentum with six consecutive points.
Middle blocker Alec Rothe contributed a kill and a block during the run, Parks added an ace and Chaney continued to provide offense from the outside.
The Gators never lost the lead and closed out the match with a dominant 15-8 win to stop a five-match losing streak against the Wildcats.
Chaney led Florida with 22 kills on 48 attacks, tying DeLeye for the match high. Brooklyn Briscoe and King each recorded seven blocks, while Rothe added five.
Parks finished with 43 assists, while Selena Leban led Florida with 21 digs and Lily Hayes added 19.
The victory gave Florida its highest-ranked win of the season and its highest since a 3-0 win against No. 2 Stanford in 2023.
“Let’s not go crazy on a 3-0 start [in conference play],” Florida coach Ryan Theis said. “We got four in a row on the road. This is a grind and it was a great start, but we got a long way to go.”
Florida, off to its best start since opening 14-0 in 2017, begins that four-match road stretch Friday against Missouri (8-7, 1-2) in Columbia, with first serve scheduled for 8 p.m. ET on ESPNU.
