BATON ROUGE — With two weeks remaining on the Tigers’ seven-week road trip, the 24th-ranked LSU volleyball team will spend this weekend in Alabama for a pair of Southeastern Conference matches beginning with the Tigers taking on Alabama on Friday at 7 p.m. in the CAVE.
Fans can watch the match through live stats on LSU Sports Interactive at www.LSUsports.net on the live statistics page under the multimedia link. LSU (12-1, 2-0 SEC) will then close out the weekend against Auburn on Sunday at 1 p.m. at the Student Activities Center. The match will be televised on SEC-TV in Baton Rouge on FSN Southwest, cable channel 38.
“We are excited about the opportunity to play at Alabama,” said LSU head coach Fran Flory. “It is the site of the SEC Tournament this season and is a wonderful venue for championship volleyball.”
Matching their best start in school history though 13 matches, the Tigers entered the AVCA/CSTV Top 25 poll this week at No. 24. It marked the first time LSU has been ranked since falling out of the poll on Sept. 20, 1993.
The Tigers began receiving votes in the poll two weeks ago after improving to 8-1 on the season after going 2-1 at the UTSA Dome Rally, with their only loss of the year to nationally ranked Texas A&M in five games. LSU gained momentum last week after knocking off No. 8 Notre Dame in the Nokia Sugar Bowl Classic, the first win for the Tigers over a nationally ranked team since 1992.
Compounding their success is the fact that LSU has yet to play in the friendly confines of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center this season, in part due to scheduled renovations in the Maravich Center and in part due to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. With 12 road victories, the Tigers have now posted the most road wins since the 2002 team went 12-9 away from the Maravich Center.
Thus far, LSU has been gone 18 of the previous 32 days and traveled 5,405 miles. The Tigers are scheduled to be gone eight of the next 14 days and travel 4,670 miles. In total, LSU will have been gone 26 days over seven weeks and traveled 10,075 miles, without ever leaving the southeastern United States, before hosting its first home match of the season on Oct. 14 against Mississippi State.
“Any match on the road in SEC play is going to be tough,” said Flory. “Winning divisional matches is vital to the success of our team this season.”
After dropping its season opener, Alabama rattled off 13 consecutive victories, the longest winning streak in Crimson Tide volleyball, before falling to Kentucky on the road last weekend. Alabama is also undefeated at home, posting a 4-0 record in the CAVE.
“Alabama had a very successful pre-conference schedule,” said Flory. “They are a young but very dangerous team. We will have to be efficient and maintain a high level of intensity in order to be successful.”
Senior Ivana Kuzmic, the SEC Defensive Player of the Week, leads the league and ranks fourth in the NCAA in blocks per game at 1.78. Last weekend, she recorded her 1,000th career kill and is averaging 2.30 for the season with a team-best .372 hitting percentage.
Senior Jelena Mijatovic leads the Tigers and ranks second in the SEC with 4.70 kills per game. In addition, she leads the league and ranks 10th in the NCAA in service aces per game at 0.76. Junior Kassi Mikulik leads LSU and ranks ninth in the league with 3.42 digs per game.
Alabama has four players averaging over three kills a game, led by Bridget Fuentez with 3.72 kills per game. Crystal Hudson leads the Crimson Tide with 1.13 blocks per game with 3.53 kills per game. Jessica Yearout boasts a team-best 4.51 digs per game for Alabama.
Despite their success on the road this season, the Tigers face a tough challenge this weekend. LSU has not won in Tuscaloosa since 2001 and no current member of the Tiger team has ever defeated Alabama (13-2, 1-1 SEC) in the CAVE. The Crimson Tide lead the all-time series in Tuscaloosa, 11-8, and have won five of the last six at home. LSU leads the overall series, 20-18, and the pair split two meetings last season.
The Tigers will close out their seven-week road trip next week. LSU will face Arkansas on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Fayetteville before taking on Kentucky on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. (CT) in Lexington. The Tigers will then open the home schedule against Mississippi State on Oct. 14 at 6 p.m. The match time was moved up an hour because of Basketball Fan Day later that evening.