Kentucky vs Wisconsin 12-18-2025 WVB Semifinal #2
Dear Readers~
We have reached the second to last game of the 2025 NCAA Division 1 Women's Indoor Volleyball season. This semifinal has the Kentucky Wildcats taking on the Wisconsin Badgers in Kansas City, Missouri. With this being the second to last game of the season, the pressure is on for both teams since if you lose, your season is over but if you win, you play in the national championships for a chance at the national title. With today's game taking place on December 18th at the T Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri, let's see who will come out on top: Wisconsin, only the third team all season to beat Texas (who they beat in the previous game), or Kentucky, the second-best team in the nation (behind only Nebraska)? Let's find out in today's game.
In order to get here, each team had to have won a total of 4 consecutive games that made up the first, second, and third rounds, along with the regional finals. In order to get here, Kentucky (ranked #1 in their quadrant) beat 3 of those 4 teams with a score of 3-0 (including against #3 Creighton) while one game ended 3-1 (#8 UCLA). As for Wisconsin, they won two games 3-0 and two games 3-1. The two games they won 3-1 were against Texas (1) and Stanford (2), the only teams in their quadrant of the bracket ranked higher than they are.
If you've been following along this season, I'm sure you have an idea of how the sport works in the NCAA and the national championships are no different but for those who haven't seen my coverage of some of the earlier games in the season (or earlier in the tournament), let's explain. The NCAA indoor games are played anywhere from 3 to 5 sets. If you win 3 sets, you've won the game but if you lose 3 sets, you've lost the game, and this is the point in the season where if you lose 3 sets, your season is over. The game can last anywhere from 3 to 5 sets, depending on how long it takes one team to win three sets. The first four sets are played first to 25 (which happens very often unless you're Nebraska or Kentucky (sorry Wisconsin) for example) while the fifth set (if needed) is played first to 15. The thing is each set requires a lead of 2 points or more for the set to conclude. With most sets playing to 25, each team is given two timeouts for each set, just like how a timeout works in basketball. Just like in basketball, the NCAA lets teams switch out players up to 15 times each set but with 6 players on the court for each team, the changes need to be smart and strategic. With our explanation over, let's get into today's game from Kansas City, Missouri as we see who can win their semifinal game and move on to the national championships to play either Texas A&M or Pittsburg in the finals at the T Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri just a few days after this game.
With this game deciding who moves on to the national finals and whose season ends one game shy, let's get into today's game and find out who's given a chance at the national title: Wisconsin or Kentucky. The first set ended at 25-12 in favor of Wisconsin, giving them the 1-0 lead early and making that the biggest gap in scoring at the conclusion of any set during this game. The second set ended at 25-22, in favor of Kentucky, and tying it up at 1-1. For the third set, that ended at 25-21, in favor of Wisconsin and giving them a lead of 2-1 going into the fourth set. For the fourth set, that one ended at 26-24 (the only set where the two-point rule needed to go into effect), in favor of Kentucky and tying the game at 2-2 and causing a fifth set. The fifth set ended at 15-13, in favor of Kentucky and giving them the win 3 sets to Wisconsin's 2. After a rough start, Kentucky came out victorious and moves on. At the end, Wisconsin scored 87 points while Kentucky scored 76. This tends to be due to things like the rotation being out of order, there are different ways to score points, or a confusion with older scoring systems (which is uncommon now but still possible) for example.
Now that we know how the game ended, let's see how each team did. We'll look into the 5 stats that include kills, aces, blocks, assists, and digs. Up first is kills and the leader goes to Wisconsin's Mimi Colyer, with 32, followed by Kentucky's Eva Hudson, with 29, and Wisconsin's Carter Booth, with21. As for aces, nobody on the Wisconsin team scored any but three on Kentucky each got one. They were Trinity Ward, Molly Tuozzo, and Eva Hudson. As for blocks, the leader is Wisconsin's Carter Booth, with 6, followed by Kentucky's Brooklyn DeLeye, with 5, and Wisconsin's Charlie Fuerbringer and Alicia Andrew, along with Kentucky's Kennedy Washington, who all had 3 blocks of their own. For assists, the leader is Wisconsin's Charlie Fuerbringer, with 63, while Kentucky was led by Kassie O'Brien, with 54. For reference on how high that is, that averages out to 12.6 assists per set for Fuerbringer and 10.8 assists per set for O'Brien. The leader in digs goes to Kentucky's Molly Tuozzo, with 17, followed by Wisconsin's Grace Egan, with 15, and Kentucky's Brooklyn DeLeye and Wisconsin's Charlie Fuerbringer, each with 14. The athlete mentioned the most goes to Kentucky's Outside Hitter Eva Hudson, who appears in 4 of the 5 stats mentioned above while Setter Charlie Fuerbringer led Wisconsin, being in 3 of the 5 stats mentioned above. Hudson ended the game with 29 kills, 1 ace, 2 blocks, and 1 assist. Fuerbringer ended the game with 3 blocks, 63 assists, and 14 digs. For reference, Kentucky's Setter, Kassie O'Brien, showed up in 3 of the 5 sets (second highest after Hudson) and ended the game with 2 blocks, 54 assists, and 9 digs. Between Fuerbringer and O'Brien, this just goes to show how well rounded a setter needs to be.
With this being the end of Wisconsin's season, they would go on to end the 2025 season at 28-5 after an insane 13 wins in a row, last losing to Nebraska 3-0 back on Halloween night (October 31st). The last time Wisconsin played a 5 set game was when they hosted Kansas back on August 29th (literally the second game of their season). Those two games are the only games they played 5 sets of the entire 2025 season. Other than Kentucky and Nebraska, the rest of Wisconsin's 5 loses were to Texas (they got redemption in the previous matchup), Penn State, and USC. As For Kentucky, they ended this game at 27 wins in a row, the second highest of the season, only after Nebraska. After an insane 30-2 going into the national finals, will they make it 31-2 and win the national championships or will they make it 30-3 and fall short by only one game?
This concludes today's game of the second semifinals of Kentucky taking on Wisconsin. Stay tuned for the next one as we cover the national championships between Kentucky and Texas A&M for the final game of the 2025 season. Who do you think will come out on top? Stay tuned for that as well as the NCAA beach season that will start here soon and until next time, Miller out
~J. Miller
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