BATON ROUGE — Entering the fifth weekend of a now seven weekend road trip, the LSU volleyball team is traveling to Fayetteville, Ark., to open Southeastern Conference action against South Carolina on Friday at 4 p.m., before facing Tennessee, which is receiving votes in the poll, on Sunday at 10:30 a.m.
Live statistics will be available for both matches on the Arkansas website at www.ladybacks.com under the “Live” link. Also, there should be the opportunity to view a webcast of both LSU matches by signing up for the free Lady Razorbacks All-Access site.
The Tigers (10-1, 0-0 SEC) were scheduled to open conference action at home, but due to the effects of Hurricane Katrina, the matches have been moved to Fayetteville, Ark. The matches will be played as part of doubleheaders with Arkansas. The Lady’Backs, as LSU’s travel partner in volleyball, face the same SEC teams the Tigers do each weekend.
“We are anxious to get into SEC play,” said LSU head coach Fran Flory. “We had a successful pre-conference schedule and think that it prepared us to jump into SEC play with two tough teams that have traditionally been at the top of the conference.
“We are disappointed that we won’t open SEC play at home,” Flory continued. “We appreciated everything that Arkansas has done to host us and we feel like we can be successful playing at Fayetteville.”
Having yet to play a match in the friendly confines of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, the Tigers have now posted the most road wins since the 2002 team went 12-7 away from home. LSU has been gone for 14 of the previous 28 days and traveled 4,138 miles before leaving this weekend. When the seven weekend trip is concluded, the Tigers will have been gone for 27 of the previous 50 days and traveled 9,069 miles, including 2,486 by bus and 6,583 by plane, without ever leaving the southeastern United States.
Despite playing on the road, LSU is off to its best start since the 1991 team advanced to the NCAA Final Four. South Carolina (7-3, 0-0 SEC) won its first five matches, but has lost three of its last five. Tennessee (6-3, 0-0 SEC) won six of its first seven matches, but was swept in its last two, falling out of the polls for the first time in 17 weeks.
Senior Jelena Mijatovic leads the Tigers and ranks 21st in the NCAA with 4.90 kills per game and ranks third in the nation in service aces per game at 0.79. Senior Ivana Kuzmic leads the SEC and ranks third in the nation with a 1.93 blocks per game average. Kassi Mikulik boasts a team-best 3.50 digs per game average, which is 10th in the SEC.
Shonda Cole leads South Carolina with 4.91 kills per game, while also averaging 0.91 blocks per game. Nicole Miller leads the Gamecocks with 1.24 blocks per game, followed by Iris Santos at 1.03. Sarah Morgan records a team-best 3.68 digs per game for South Carolina this season.
LSU is 8-11 all time against South Carolina, including a 1-0 record at neutral sites. Last season, the Tigers posted their second consecutive win over the Gamecocks in Columbia.
Yuliya Stoyanova leads Tennessee with 4.32 kills per game, while Kristen Andre is averaging over three kills per game. Andre also leads the Lady Vols with 1.12 blocks per game, followed by Heather Harrington with 1.25. Tennessee’s leader in digs per game is Amy Morris at 3.60.
LSU is 24-15 all time against Tennessee, including a 5-3 record at neutral sites. The Tigers are 3-2 in the last four meetings, but both losses were on the road.
Following the trip to Fayetteville, LSU will travel to Alabama and Auburn next weekend. The Tigers will face the Crimson Tide on Friday at 7 p.m. before taking on AU on Sunday at 1 p.m. The match will be televised live on SEC-TV in Baton Rouge on FSN Southwest, cable channel 38.