BATON ROUGE — The LSU volleyball team will travel to Columbia, S.C. for the 2003 Southeastern Conference Tournament this weekend as the seventh seed and will take on second-seeded Arkansas in the first round on Friday at 7 p.m. CST.
The Tigers (11-18, 6-10 SEC) finished the season in third place in the SEC Western Division and in a three-way tie with South Carolina and Kentucky for sixth in the overall standings. LSU earned the seventh seed based on head-to-head results among the three tied teams.
For the third straight year and ninth time in the last 10 years, the Lady’Backs (22-5, 15-1 SEC) won the SEC Western Division title and qualified as the second seed overall in the tournament. Arkansas’ only conference loss of the season was to SEC champion Florida, which did not lose a game in league play.
This will be the first meeting between the Tigers and the Lady’Backs in the SEC Tournament. LSU holds a 27-24 overall record in 24 tournament appearances with four SEC Tournament titles and four runner-up finishes. Arkansas is 15-8 in tournament play in nine appearances since joining the league in 1994, winning the tournament title in 1997, and finishing as the tournament runner-up on six occasions.
If LSU defeats the Lady’Backs on Friday, it will advance to take on the winner of the Alabama-South Carolina match on Saturday at 4 p.m. CST. The winner of that match will play for the SEC Tournament championship on Sunday at noon CST for the league’s automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.