BATON ROUGE — The LSU volleyball team will try to recover from its heartbreaking loss to ninth-ranked Florida on Friday at 6:30 p.m. when it faces Southeastern Conference for Georgia at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
The match, which is being broadcast live on SEC-TV (Fox Sports South), is crucial for both teams in their SEC Tournament positioning. The Tigers are still hopeful of an SEC Western Division title while the Bulldogs are looking to keep their hopes alive for a tournament berth.
?I think this is a huge match for us,? said LSU coach Fran Flory. ?Wins out of the Eastern Division are going to determine who wins our division. Georgia is fighting for survival to get into the SEC Tournament and a win here for them would be huge.?
In a rare mid-week conference match, the Tigers pushed Florida to the limit despite falling 3-0 in one of the top performances by LSU on the season.
However, following one of the other top performances by the Tigers, they fell off in the next match and dropped a 3-0 decision to Kentucky.
?I am a little concerned about us falling off a little,? Flory added. ?The things that should help us are that we are expecting a great crowd and we are playing on TV. The things that are outside of what we control directly on the court, should help us.
?The team has talked about being mentally tough and being resilient. This is what we are trying to prepare for, controlling our own fate and hopefully we ?ll do that Friday.?
In correspondence with the televised match, LSU has scheduled a variety of events before and during the match. Beginning at 5 p.m., a tailgate party which lasts until match time will proceed just outside the north end of the PMAC.
The FiJi 5K ?Race for the Cure? will also begin from the Assembly Center at 5:30 with the finish line being at the PMAC as well. Invited to sing the national anthem is Nashville recording artist and 13-year old Alicen Holden, whose voice has been described as somewhere between Martina McBride and Trisha Yearwood.
And during the match, a Mardi Gras parade will go forth.
On the court, LSU will look to take advantage of the Bulldog defense, which is allowing opponents to hit .268 in conference play. The Tigers rank third in the league in hitting percentage at .251.
Leading the attack from the middle will be current SEC Player of the Week Meagan Davis and Lauren Cuyler, who each rank in the top 10 in the league in hitting percentage and blocks/game. Davis hit .444 last time out against Florida.
On the outside, Kyra Lancon should pace the Tigers as she has hit for double-digit kills in 10 of her 13 matches, including Friday night.
The Bulldogs will counter with Stacy Buerger, a first-team All-SEC selection a season ago. Buerger ranks third in the league in kills/game with a 4.36 average.
?Georgia started really slowly in SEC play and now they are coming on strong. But they won three in a row recently before playing Florida and hit over .300, won 3-0 on each of those occasions. They have some very capable offensive weapons, especially when you talk about Buerger and (Erin) Gornes.?
Last season the teams met twice with Georgia winning the regular-season battle in Athens and LSU taking the match in the second round of the SEC Tournament in Gainesville, Fla.