BATON ROUGE — Despite career nights for Regan Hood and Megan Heinz, the LSU volleyball team lost a four-game match to Arkansas to open Southeastern Conference play, 30-27, 30-24, 29-31, 30-25, in the Maravich Center on Wednesday night.
With the loss, the Tigers drop to 5-8 on the season and 0-1 in league play. The Lady’Backs improve to 8-4 overall and 1-0 in conference play.
Hood led LSU offensively with a career-high 27 kills, her third 20-plus kill performance of the season. The 27 kills marks the most kills by a Tiger since Jennifer Hampton recorded 28 against Florida A&M on Sept. 13, 2002. The junior from Carrollton, Texas, also recorded seven digs with two blocks while hitting at a .327 clip.
Defensively, Heinz recorded 10 total blocks including four block solos. The four solo blocks ties her for ninth in LSU history for a four-game match. The last time an LSU player recorded 10 total blocks was on Oct. 19, 2001, when Megan Davis had 10 blocks against Ole Miss. Along with a career-high 16 kills while hitting.353, the performance marked the first double-double of the sophomore’s career.
After falling behind two games to one, the Tigers rallied back in the third game to keep the match alive. In all four games, LSU was either tied or trailed by only one late in each game. Unfortunately, the Tigers could not overcome the Lady’Backs in three of the games, falling to late game rallies by Arkansas.
“I think this was a golden opportunity that got away from us,” said LSU head coach Fran Flory. “They did exactly what they thought we would do. They gave us some great opportunities and we did not take advantage of them. I though we played not to lose after we reached 20 in each game, and didn’t play to win.
“I did like the way we fought back in game three. I think this match was a confidence builder for us. Arkansas was projected to be the Western Division champion and we learned that we are not that far off from them and that we can play with them. I think if we had one more player that would have shown up offensively that we could have won.”
In the first game, the Tigers jumped out to an early 12-4 lead. Arkansas then went on a 7-1 run to cut the LSU lead to 13-11. The Tigers went on to expand their lead to five points, 20-15, before the Lady’Backs came back to tie the game at 22. With the game tied at 27, Arkansas scored the final three points to take the game, 30-27.
In game two, the Lady’Backs used a 5-1 run to break a 12-12 tie. LSU would not go away and got it back to one, 23-22, before a 6-2 run closed out the game for Arkansas, 30-24.
The Tigers fell behind early in the third game, 10-4. Trailing 20-13, LSU scored seven straight points to tie the game. After five more ties, a kill by Kassi Mikulik gave the Tigers the game, 31-29.
With the fourth game tied at 16, Arkansas went on a 4-0 run to take the lead and never relinquished it. LSU was able to tie the game at 23, but the Lady’Backs scored seven of the final nine points to take the game and the match, 30-25.
The Tigers will continue SEC play at home this week at home against South Carolina on Friday at 7 p.m. The Gamecocks (6-6) are receiving votes in the AVCA/USA Today Coaches poll and have won two straight and four of their last five matches.
On Sunday, the Tigers will host Kentucky at 1:30 p.m. The Wildcats (8-4) have lost three of their last four matches after winning seven straight.