After a difficult season filled with off-the-field adversity, Mark Stoops’ 2020 Kentucky football team finished 5-6.
Though showing some signs of late-season life, John Calipari’s 2020-21 UK men’s basketball team has spent much of this winter mired in a dispiriting slog and stands 8-13.
Yet even with the 13-19 combined record produced so far by the Wildcats’ marquee teams, UK backers can find ample sources for athletics bragging rights this year — if they are willing to expand their fandom beyond the two most high-profile sports.
In case you haven’t noticed, Kentucky Wildcats women’s sports teams are rocking 2020-21.
Over the weekend, the No. 3-ranked UK women’s swimming and diving squad did something no such team representing Kentucky ever had:
It won the SEC Championship.
With junior Riley Gaines (200 freestyle), sophomore Lauren Poole (400 individual medley) and UK’s 800 freestyle relay (juniors Gaines, Izzy Gatti and Sophie Sorenson and sophomore Kaitlynn Wheeler) taking gold medals, Kentucky vanquished traditional SEC swim powers Florida and Georgia to make Wildcats sports history.
“So many people had terrific effort this weekend, it was really fantastic,” Kentucky Coach Lars Jorgensen told the SEC Network after his team won the title. “I couldn’t be more thrilled for our institution and for our girls. What a great moment.”
It is possible that the swimming breakthrough will be only the first of many memorable moments produced by UK women’s teams and athletes before this 2020-21 school year ends:
▪ Sophomore star Mary Tucker will lead the No. 2-ranked Kentucky rifle team as Coach Harry Mullins and the Cats try to win the NCAA championship that was wrested away from UK last year by the coronavirus.
Last March, Kentucky was heavily favored to claim its third NCAA rifle title only to see the championships canceled at the last minute due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, later this year, if the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics actually take place, Tucker and UK teammate Will Shaner (rifle is a coed sport) will be in Japan competing for Team USA.
▪ Helmed by senior setter Madison Lilley, the undefeated Kentucky volleyball team (12-0) sits No. 3 in the American Volleyball Coaches’ Association Top 25.
After years of coming close, has UK Coach Craig Skinner built the roster that will allow Kentucky to break through to volleyball’s final four?
▪ Junior sprinter Abby Steiner has been this winter’s breakout star for the No. 11 UK track and field team during its indoor season.
A product of Dublin, Ohio, Steiner ripped off a 22.53 200-meters dash at Clemson’s Tiger Paw Invitational this month. It was the fastest 200 meters in the United States and the second-fastest in the world in 2021.
Starting Thursday, Steiner will lead UK in the SEC Indoor Championships at Arkansas.
▪ Paced by hot-hitting junior catcher Kayla Kowalik (.613 batting average, four home runs, 16 RBI) and heralded freshman shortstop Erin Coffel (.486, 4, 14), the No. 12 Kentucky softball team has started 9-0.
Rachel Lawson’s program is seeking to return to the Women’s College World Series for the first time since 2014.
▪ Coach Tim Garrison’s No. 15 Kentucky gymnastics team has meet wins over Arkansas (then No. 5), Auburn (then-No. 8) and Missouri (then-No. 20).
▪ In Kyra Elzy’s first season as UK women’s basketball coach, the No. 19 Wildcats (15-6) have four victories over ranked teams: then-No. 13 Indiana, then-No. 10 Arkansas, then-No. 12 Mississippi State and then-No. 16 Tennessee.
In junior star Rhyne Howard (19.3 ppg, 7.2 rpg), UK boasts one of the most talented women’s basketball players in the college game. The 2019-20 SEC Player of the Year, Howard’s presence makes Kentucky at least a threat to make some noise in March Madness.
For those keeping score, that’s three UK women’s teams ranked in the top three in the nation in their respective sports and seven in the top 20.
That’s pretty strong.
If you watched the Kentucky swimmers celebrate by jumping into the pool as a unit after claiming the SEC championship, you saw Mitch Barnhart, in his street clothes, dive into the water to join the celebration.
Whatever criticisms one may have of Barnhart, one important facet of his long tenure as Kentucky athletics director is unarguably impressive:
At a school with no history of having an SEC-caliber, all-around athletics department, Barnhart has built just that since coming to UK in 2002. Kentucky consistently has good teams in more sports than at anytime in its history.
The biggest beneficiaries of Barnhart’s commitment to trying to be good in all sports have been the Wildcats’ women’s teams.
That’s why this school year, when Kentucky’s most high-profile men’s teams have had such a rough go, it is the Wildcats’ high-powered women’s programs that are keeping UK in the hunt for sports glory.
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