BATON ROUGE — On senior day, LSU’s two seniors, Meg Norwood and Kelly Thompson led the LSU volleyball team to a thrilling 15-6, 15-7. 8-15, 1-15, 15-10 victory over Mississippi State.
After losing games three and four, the Tigers were up against the ropes and facing an upset. Trailing 5-4 in rally-scoring game five, LSU ripped off three consecutive points to take control of the match.
“We did a nice job to comeback today against one of the best defenses in the SEC,” said LSU coach Fran Flory. “They are a good team getting balls back no matter how well you hit them, but we did good to not let that bother us too much.”
The win improved LSU to 15-12 on the year and 7-6 in Southeastern Conference play. The Bulldogs fell to 10-15 overall and 1-12 in the SEC.
In a two-game hole, Mississippi State clawed their way out with an offensive attack that stymied the LSU defense. The Bulldogs had 33 kills to LSU’s 20 in the two games.
“They did some good things that we couldn’t answer in games three and four,” said Flory. “We were out of sync and couldn’t find a groove, but our players showed a lot of heart by fighting back in game five.”
For the match, the Tigers owned a .165 to .157 advantage in attack percentage. LSU also outdug, 78 to 71, and outblocked, 11 to 7, the Bulldogs.
Both seniors, playing in their final home conference matches, recorded double-doubles in leading the Tigers to victory. Norwood had a team-high 19 kills to go along with her 12 digs.
“Kelly and I have been waiting for this for four years. As we have gotten closer to the date, we have gotten nervous. We don’t want it to end,” said Norwood following the match.
Thompson, recording her fourth consecutive double double, had 17 kills and 14 digs. During the match, she moved into seventh all-time in LSU history in kills with 1,316.
“It was very emotional before the match with my parents here and this being my last home SEC match,” said Thompson. “We have had lots of memorable wins here and five-game matches are always exciting. It is a good way to go out.”
LSU returns to action Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at home against Southern Miss before traveling to Auburn and Alabama this weekend to decide which team will be the SEC Western Divisions second-place team.