UK Volleyball's Craig Skinner Notches His 500th Career Match Victory
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LEXINGTON, Ky. – Kentucky Volleyball head coach Craig Skinner won his 500th career match Saturday night in Historic Memorial Coliseum, as No. 3 Kentucky defeated South Florida, 3-0 (25-18, 25-16, 25-19) to close out the 2026 Bluegrass Battle.
Skinner, who is in his 22nd season at Kentucky, has won more matches than any head coach in program history. The native of Muncie, Indiana who took the helm of Kentucky Volleyball in 2005 has led Kentucky to nine-straight Southeastern Conference championships and becomes the second coach in SEC history to win 500 matches at one school, joining Florida’s Mary Wise.
The mastermind of Kentucky’s 2020 NCAA National Championship and two NCAA Final Fours was honored with a post-match ceremony where several past colleagues, coaches, players and assistant coaches sent video messages to Skinner including his family and friends.
In Saturday’s match, UK hit .277 as a team and had two players with 10-plus kills as Brooklyn DeLeye notched 12 terminations to lead the Wildcats and Lizzie Carr had 10 on the night hitting .421 for the match. Kassie O’Brien had 33 assists and Molly Tuozzo had 10 digs in the match.
Kentucky will next play UCLA on Wednesday night in the first match of the 2026 Allstate SEC/Big Ten Challenge inside Historic Memorial Coliseum at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN2. Kevin Barnett, Missy Whittemore and Jessica Eley will have the call from HMC.
UK is now 3-1 on the season and USF is 0-2. The Bulls will play Sunday against Utah State at Noon ET.
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