BATON ROUGE — The LSU volleyball team will look to bounce back from its first Southeastern Conference loss on Friday night when it hosts Auburn at 7 p.m. at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
LSU (4-5, 1-1 SEC) dropped its last outing on the road at Kentucky, 3-0, on Sunday. Prior to that, the Bayou Bengals stunned Tennessee in Knoxville, 3-1.
“We were two different teams last weekend,” said LSU coach Fran Flory. “We were focused and determined against Tennessee and then just came out flat against Kentucky. We weren’t ready to play and paid the consequences.”
Auburn (1-9, 0-2) is coming off consecutive losses to open the conference season, including a heartbreaking 3-2 defeat at the hands Ole Miss.
“This is a big match for us to get back on the right track,” said Flory. “Auburn hasn’t had a lot of success this year, but they done well in Baton Rouge in recent years. If we don’t come out ready to play, we could be looking at another loss.”
Last season, the pair of Tigers split two matches with each team winning on the road. LSU last beat Auburn in Baton Rouge in 1998, when it did so in five games.
LSU is led into the match by senior middle blocker Meagan “Snoop” Davis, who leads the Tiger offense with a .378 hitting percentage. She is also second on the squad in kills with 2.89 per game while leading the way at the net with 1.21 blocks/game.
“We need Snoop to play the way she is capable of playing,” Flory said of Davis, who had her least effective outing of the season in the loss to Kentucky. “She is the focal point of our offense and she has to carry that load for us.”
On the outside, freshman Kyra Lancon has begun to shine, hitting for double-figure kills in each of her past three games. She led the team in two of those outings. Junior Jennifer Hampton is also a threat with over four kills/game in her last two matches.
Expected to join Davis, Lancon and Hampton in the starting line up will be junior Katie Kubena (10.54 assists/game), senior Meghan Bedford (2.62 kills/game, 1.08 blocks/game) and junior Rachel Vogt (1.96 kills/game). Auburn’s top offensive threat is Grace Boyd, who is hitting .306 while putting away 3.03 balls per game.