BATON ROUGE — Junior Lauren Cuyler registered 14 kills and eight blocks in carrying LSU to a 30-23, 30-25, 30-24, over Arkansas on Friday evening at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Cuyler’s effort sent the Tigers four seniors, Meghan Bedford, Lyndsey Benson, Meagan Davis and Addie Prewitt, out winners in their final home match.
“This is the best way to have it all end,” said LSU coach Fran Flory. “This is the way you would want to see it happen for this group of seniors.”
The Tigers moved to within two games of the Southeastern Conference Western Division leading LadyBacks with the win. It is only the second time LSU (13-8, 8-4) has beaten Arkansas (15-9, 10-2) and the first at home.
In notching the season-high 14 kills, Cuyler hit .542 on the match despite battling shoulder pain throughout. By the end of the third game, the Tigers were unable to set her. And when they did, she was forced to hit left handed, which she did for a kill on one occasion.
“Cuyler played with reckless abandon tonight.” Flory said. “She is just a true athlete who has figured out how to use her athleticism to be dominant in volleyball and that is what you saw tonight.
“We are limited in the number of swings we can give her, but for her to be able to go out there and be effective left handed is amazing.”
Cuyler was joined by fellow middle blocker Davis in shutting down the Arkansas offense at the net. LSU recorded 12 blocks, led by Cuyler and Davis who recorded three solo blocks a piece, to outblock Arkansas, which came in as the top blocking team in the conference.
“The fact that we could outblock Arkansas is impressive. I felt the way we blocked tonight was key to us winning the match,” Flory noted. “On the other side, our offense did a nice job of not allowing their blocking to as much of a factor. Our hitters were very good at hitting around and through the blocks tonight.”
The Tigers affected Arkansas middle blocker Libby Windell enough that she hit -.174 on the night. She came into the match as the conference’s leading hitter at .482.
Davis was very effective offensively in the early going, recording five kills and no errors in the first two games. Her first kill of game three was the 1,000th of her career, making her the 11th Tiger to reach the plateau.
LSU used comebacks in both games two and three to knock off the LadyBacks.
In each game Arkansas led at the midway point only to have the Tigers rally and take over the lead once the game reached the 20-point mark. The first game was all LSU as it jumped out to an 11-6 lead and led by as many as 10, 27-17, late.
The two teams will meet again at 1 p.m. on Sunday in Fayetteville.