BATON ROUGE — The LSU volleyball team rallied from down two games to one to defeat Alabama 7-15, 15-9, 13-15, 15-12, 15-11 in a big Southeastern Conference match.
The win improves LSU to 11-10 overall and 3-4 in the SEC. Alabama drops to 10-11 and 2-5 in the conference. LSU’s win combined with Auburn’s loss to Arkansas puts the Tigers in a two-way tie for second in the SEC Western Division.
“Tonight was a must win for us,” said LSU coach Fran Flory. “I think we played tentatively like we had the weight of the world on us. Once we were able to get in a rhythm and get going things opened up for us.”
LSU, having gone 0-2 in five-game matches this season, jumped on Alabama early in game five taking 5-0 lead and stretching it as high as 11-4. The Tigers withstood a late Alabama charge to hold on.
The previous game, LSU went up 14-5 before letting Alabama climb back into the game. The Crimson Tide scored seven unanswered points and fought off six game points before LSU was able to win the game.
“We learned a little bit about who we are today. We prepared for a five-game match in practice yesterday. I had a feeling it might go to rally scoring and as fate would have we did. That gave us confidence that we were going to win the match,” said Flory.
For the match, the Tigers were outhit by Alabama in both kills and hitting percentage. The Crimson Tide had 85 kills en route to a .199 attack percentage while LSU killed 81 balls as part of a .164 attack percentage.
LSU had a season high 92 digs in the match and out-dug an opponent for the first time this season against an SEC opponent.
“Our passing wasn’t that good today. We aren’t a very good team out of our system offensively,” said Flory. “They were able to run anything they wanted today and they were getting great swings. We had to make some great defensive saves to stay in the match.”
Serving was also crucial to the Tigers victory as LSU had seven aces, led by Meagan Davis’ five, to only three errors while the Tide hit for five aces, but also had 11 service errors.
“Our serving was definitely big for us today. We kept them out of sync offensively with some good serves and that led to a lot of points.”
LSU had four players record double-doubles on the match led by Jennifer Hampton’s 19 kills and 17 digs. Hampton led the team in kills for the second consecutive match.
Senior Meg Norwood put away 16 balls while digging a team season high of 23 to record her fourth straight double-double. It is the second time this season Norwood has had a streak of four double-doubles.
“Meg and Jennifer disappeared in the beginning of the match but I think they came through when they had to and that show’s a lot of heart,” said Flory.
With 14 kills, Kelly Thompson extended her streak of matches with double-digit kills to 15. She also had 14 digs and eight blocks, which led all players.
Davis led the Tigers in attack percentage at .333 while hitting for 18 kills and picking up 10 digs. It is the 10th straight time Davis has hit at least .333.
Freshman setter Katie Kubena entered the match in game two and recorded 46 assists and nine digs, leaving her one short of a double-double. She added four blocks.
Alabama started the match on fire, hitting .355 in game one, the highest percentage by either team in a game on the afternoon.
However, LSU bounced back to take game two in a close, hard fought game. The Tigers then built an early lead in game three only to see Alabama come back and eventually break a 13-13 tie to win two straight points and take a 2-1 lead.