BATON ROUGE — The LSU volleyball team opens Southeastern Conference play on Wednesday against defending Western Division champion Arkansas in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center at 3 p.m. The game was moved up from a 7 p.m. start time due to the approach of Hurricane Isidore.
The Tigers (7-3) went 2-1 in the Florida State Invitational last weekend, defeating Brown and Louisiana-Lafayette and dropping a five-game match to Florida State. Arkansas (9-3) has lost three of its last five matches, two of which were to nationally ranked opponents.
“We moved the game time up to protect the welfare of our student-athletes,” said LSU head coach Fran Flory. “The well-being of our athletes is always the priority. We know that moving the game time up to a 3 p.m. start time will cause us to lose much of our home court advantage because we will lose much of our crowd, but we hope that the students and the LSU faculty and staff will rally around us and come out to support the team in this key SEC match.”
Last season, the Tigers finished second in the SEC Western Division, their best league finish since 1995, with the most conference wins since 1992. LSU was picked to finish third by the league’s coaches in the conference preseason poll. Arkansas has won the Western Division seven of the last eight years and was once again picked to win the division in the preseason poll.
“This is a big match for us,” said Flory. “This is for bragging rights in our division. Last season we had success against them at home it would be a huge way to get the conference schedule started if we came away with a win.
“Arkansas is a big, physical team,” Flory continued. “The key to the match will be at the net. The team that is more efficient offensively and is more effective blocking will win. We have been focusing on our net play and our blocking all week and know that we will have to be smart offensively to win.”
This will be the first time the Tigers have opened the SEC slate against the Lady’Backs. Over the last several years, LSU has not faired well in SEC openers. The Tigers ended a five-year losing streak last season when they defeated Tennessee on the road, 3-1, to open league play.
At the FSU Invitational last weekend, Tiger freshman Cara Causey led the way for LSU with 4.29 kills per game and a .500 hitting percentage. She also recorded a team-high average of one block per game. Against Brown and ULL, she led the team in both kills and blocks.
Senior Jennifer Hampton led the team with 45 kills and 32 digs for the weekend, while adding a team-best three solo blocks. Regan Hood led the team with eight total blocks and Katie Kubena had a team-high 138 assists.
The weekend provided one of the best hitting performance by the Tigers in school history. Against Florida State, LSU hit at a .347 clip in the five-game battle. That mark ranks second in school history behind a .355 hitting performance against Mississippi State on Nov. 18, 1998.
Against Louisiana-Lafayette, the Tigers topped the .347 mark to hit at a .352 clip in the four-game victory. That hitting percentage ranks eight in school history and is the best attacking percentage recorded in a four-game match by LSU in nine years.
LSU will next host Tennessee on Friday at 7 p.m. in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center. The match will be televised tape delayed in Baton Rouge on FoxSports Southwest, cable channel 37 on Sunday at 2:30 p.m.