‘An unbelievable ride.’ UK volleyball’s 2021 featured an NCAA title and a shocking loss.

After it was over, Alli Stumler talked about how it began.

Just minutes after her Kentucky volleyball career came to an end with UK’s shocking second-round loss to Illinois in the NCAA Tournament on Saturday night — ending Kentucky’s bid for back-to-back national championships — Stumler sat at a table inside Memorial Coliseum’s media room and shared a story about how her time as a Wildcat started.

The year was 2015 or 2016 — a visibly emotional Stumler couldn’t exactly recall when — and she committed to the Kentucky program by lifting up her sweatshirt to reveal a UK shirt while at the locally owned Common Grounds coffee shop located on the UK campus, just across the street from what became her home court.

What followed were four SEC championships, four trips to the NCAA Tournament, three Sweet 16 appearances and the first national championship in UK history.

“I had no idea it would end like this and be like this,” Stumler said with tears in her eyes. “It has been an unbelievable ride and really stinking fun. It makes it a lot better when you have cool people and just people who really care, really care about others and really care about the sport. Nothing I could have dreamed of ... I couldn’t have asked for it to be any better.”

And even after it ended, Stumler, a senior outside hitter who was named the SEC Player of the Year this season, savored her final moments in uniform as a Kentucky Wildcat and an NCAA champion.

After the Kentucky team left the Memorial Coliseum floor, Stumler emerged along with Kentucky’s two other seniors: Libero Lauren Tharp and setter Cameron Scheitzach.

They stood on Kentucky’s blue, silver and white Taraflex playing surface and waved to the crowd one last time. Stumler remembers telling Tharp and Scheitzach “This is stinking horrible.”

“Our fans are truly the best, and so getting to kind of soak it in one last time with them was awesome,” Stumler added. “Obviously, it stinks, you hate it to be that way, but they’re just awesome. I’m so happy for this program and the future and the fans dedicating so much time and energy to the sport.”

The crowd of 2,369 fans inside Memorial Coliseum on Saturday night meant that over the last nine days, more than 11,800 people have watched Kentucky volleyball play in the 71-year old facility.

But despite the crowd’s best efforts to inject energy into the Kentucky performance, it appeared that a whirlwind year finally caught up with the No. 7 seed Wildcats.

In total, UK played 47 volleyball matches in the 2021 calendar year, with only four months of turnaround time between winning the national championship in April and opening the new season in August.

Kentucky finishes the 2021 season 25-5 overall and with another piece of hardware after winning the outright Southeastern Conference championship. UK went 41-6 across the 47 matches it played in the 2021 calendar year.

“We didn’t have a normal summer, and we didn’t really have a normal preseason. We had COVID issues at the beginning. There’s a list of numerous things that every team could talk about, but it’s certainly a challenging year,” UK head coach Craig Skinner said. “But at the same time, how rewarding is it for us to get to do what we do and win at the rate that we’ve won in the last 12 months?”

Kentucky was able to respond and win the second set Saturday after Illinois won the first set, which marked the first set lost by UK since Nov. 4.

But the final two sets were thoroughly dominated by Illinois, which finished the match with significant advantages in kills (71-49), digs (71-59) and hitting percentage (.331-.208).

“They (UK) hadn’t dropped a set in the last month and a half, and so we knew if we can kind of push on them a little bit, that maybe it would maybe kind of get them to think a little bit more,” said Illinois head coach Chris Tamas.

Kentucky’s .208 hitting percentage was the team’s lowest since Oct. 6.

“I’d be lying if I said we’ve been fresh all year long,” Skinner said. “It was tough. You’re being pulled in a hundred different directions (after winning the national title) and doing different stuff, so it was emotionally taxing. But at the same time, that’s why I’m so proud of this group. ... It’s really hard for teams to gel and to mesh together and to take their roles and run with it on such short turnaround.”

While this season marks the departure of Scheitzach, Stumler and Tharp, it also saw the emergence of two freshman starters in libero Eleanor Beavin and setter Emma Grome.

Beavin was named the SEC Libero of the Year and Grome was named the SEC Freshman of the Year.

“The upperclassmen were incredible the entire year. They really took us under their wing and showed us the ropes of UK Volleyball,” Grome said of her debut college season. “I think I’ve grown a lot this season, and I know there’s still so much more that I can do better.”

Skinner’s end-of-season feeling is one of obvious disappointment, but also one of immense pride at how his team navigated uncharted waters to win the program’s fifth straight conference title.

“This team has been an unreal group to weather some of the situations and storms that we’ve had over the last year,” Skinner said.

And as for the future of the program and the pursuit of more championships, especially with a lineup featuring plenty of underclassmen?

“Now it’s, ‘Can we duplicate what senior leadership does? Can we duplicate what they’ve provided to this program?’” Skinner said, referencing the three outgoing seniors. “What a great group to learn from going forward in that area. There’s a great group returning, one coming in so far, and possibly others, to help us go to the next level.”

Kentucky schools in the NCAA Tournament

While all three Kentucky schools in the NCAA Tournament advanced from their opening-round matches on Friday night via straight-sets wins, only one advanced from Saturday’s round of 32 into the Sweet 16.

That team was No. 1 seed Louisville, which remained undefeated with a round-of-32 victory in three sets over Ball State. Louisville will play No. 16 Florida in the Sweet 16.

In addition to No. 7 Kentucky’s loss to Illinois in four sets, Western Kentucky also lost in the round of 32 in three sets to No. 8 Georgia Tech.