KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – The No. 6 Illinois volleyball opened the 2019 season in dramatic fashion, as the Illini battled back from two sets down to earn a 3-2 (24-26, 23-25, 25-22, 25-27, 23-21) win over No. 19 Tennessee in their season opener on Friday (August 30) night at Thompson-Boiling Arena.
The Illini (1-0) improve to 36-10 all tme in the first match of the season.
Senior Jacqueline Quade dominated with a career-high and match-high 31 kills on a .247 percentage and registered her 14th career double-double with 15 digs and three blocks. Junior Megan Cooney posted 19 kills on a .333 attack clip en route equaling her career-high, while senior Ashlyn Fleming came within one kill of her career-high with 16 kills on a .394 percentage and four blocks.
In her Illini debut, redshirt-freshman setter Diana Brown notched her first-career double-double with 65 assists and 15 digs, while directing the Illini to a .246 team hitting percentage.
The Illini totaled 12 service aces as a team, with Brown, Quade and senior Caroline Welsh each turning in three aces.
Defensively, Illinois had five players reach double figures in digs, with junior libero Morgan O'Brien with a team-high 20 digs. Joining Quade and Brown in double digits was also sophomore Taylor Kuper with 16 and Welsh with 12.
The Illini totaled 11 blocks, with freshman Kyla Swanson leading with five and classmate Kennedy Collins adding four.
UI also had five players make their collegiate debuts against the Vols (0-1) in Collins, Brown, Swanson, Rylee Hinton and Madison Chi.
After dropping the first two sets of the match, the Illini rallied with wins in the third and fourth periods to force a decisive fifth set. After an early 3-3 tie, the Illini jumped out to an 7-4 advantage on back-to-back kills from Cooney and Quade. The Vols came back to tie the score at 7-7, but again the Illini shot ahead at 10-7, this time on three-straight scores, capped by a Brown ace.
UT rallied to close within one at 11-10, but kills from Fleming and Quade set up match point for the Illini at 14-12. Back-to-back scores from the home team then knotted things at 14-14. From there, the two teams went back-and-forth, trading the lead and fighting off five match points each until a UT service error broke a 21-21 tie and Fleming sealed the win with a kill on the next play.
The Illini return to Huff Hall to complete the home-and-home series with the Vols and kick off their 2019 home slate in a Big Ten Network-televised match on Sunday (September 1) at 1 p.m. CT.
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