Kentucky fires its women’s soccer coach amid fifth consecutive losing season
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The University of Kentucky fired women’s soccer head coach Ian Carry on Friday, the morning after the team lost its Senior Night match and fell to 0-7 in the Southeastern Conference this season.
Carry was in his fifth season in charge of the Wildcats. He was an assistant under previous head coach Jon Lipsitz from 2013-16 before taking over as head coach.
Carry, whose team is 6-8-2 overall this season, was relieved of his duties immediately. Assistant Paul Babba will serve as interim coach for the remainder of the year.
Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart said in a news release that UK will begin a national search for Carry’s replacement.
Carry finished his career at UK with a record of 26-50-8 overall and 6-35-4 in the SEC. Before joining Lipsitz’s staff at UK, Carry, a native of Ireland, was an assistant coach at Central Michigan.
Carry never posted a winning season at UK, going 8-12 in 2017, 5-14 in 2018, 6-10-3 in 2019 and 1-6-3 in 2020 before this season’s struggles.
Carry was in the second year of a three-year contract extension he signed with Kentucky in July of 2020. His contract called for Carry to be paid a base salary of $125,000 in 2020, $130,000 in 2021 and $135,000 in 2022. Carry’s contract included additional potential income through incentives, camps and the school’s multi-media rights agreement.
UK’s postseason hopes suffered a near final blow Thursday in a 1-0 Senior Night loss to LSU at the Wendell and Vickie Bell Soccer Complex.
With three matches remaining in the regular season, the Wildcats are on the outside looking in for the SEC Tournament. The league’s annual postseason championship, scheduled for Oct. 31-Nov. 7 in Orange Beach, Ala., includes only the top 10 regular-season finishers from the conference’s 14 teams.
Kentucky visits Alabama (8-7, 3-3), hosts Missouri (5-8, 1-5) and travels to Tennessee (12-1, 5-1) for its final three matches.
LSU (9-5, 2-5) scored the only goal of the match Thursday night on a penalty kick in the 73rd minute. LSU outshot Kentucky 24-8.
Before the match, UK honored seniors Marissa Bosco, Julia Grosso, Miranda Jimenez, Gretchen Mills, and Sarah Siekkinen.
Kentucky will return to action Thursday at Alabama.
Volleyball Cats win sixth straight
The fifth-ranked Kentucky volleyball team won its sixth match in a row Thursday night, overpowering LSU 3-1 in the first of two matches over two nights at Baton Rouge, La.
The Wildcats (12-3 overall, 5-0 SEC) and Tigers (7-10, 3-5) were to square off again late Friday night.
Junior middle blocker Azhani Tealer led Kentucky with eight blocks and sophomore outside hitter Madi Skinner delivered 16 kills in Kentucky’s 25-20, 23-25, 25-20, 25-16 win Thursday night at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
“We had a great match at the service line tonight and I liked how we got stronger and stronger as the match went on,” head coach Craig Skinner said. “We were efficient in our attack and Emma Grome set some nice balls for our offense tonight.”
Madi Skinner’s 16 kills marked the third time in the last four matches she has exceeded 15 kills.
In addition to her eight blocks, Tealer finished with 15 kills and a .550 hitting percentage. She now has seven matches in a row with 10-plus kills, and has hit above .300 in the last eight matches.
Kentucky’s only losses this season have come against No. 2 Louisville, No. 3 Wisconsin and No. 19 Creighton.
After its trip to LSU, Kentucky returns home for a pair of matches against Arkansas (14-4, 5-2) on Oct. 22 and 23.
