BATON ROUGE — After 16 matches and seven weeks, the LSU volleyball team will finally close out their traveling odyssey with a Southeastern Conference match at Kentucky on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. (CT) in Memorial Coliseum.
The match will be broadcast live by Cox Sports Television on Baton Rouge cable channel 37. In addition, live statistics will be available on LSU Sports Interactive at www.LSUsports.net on the live statistics page under the multimedia link.
“Any road match in the SEC is a touch situation,” said LSU head coach Fran Flory. “Teams have been knocking each other off every week.”
The Tigers (13-3, 3-2 SEC), who are receiving votes in the AVCA/CSTV Coaches poll, had their flight between Atlanta and Lexington cancelled and were forced to take a later flight. Once in Lexington, LSU learned that its bags did not make the flight and would be arriving sometime on a later flight.
This was just another addition to the travel adventures for the Tigers this season. 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 13 road victories, the Tigers have now posted the most road wins since the 1993 team went 13-8 away from the Maravich Center. When LSU returns home after Sunday’s match, the Tigers will have been gone 26 days over previous seven weeks and traveled almost 10,000 miles, without ever leaving the southeastern United States, before hosting its first home match of the season on Oct. 14 against Mississippi State at 6 p.m.
LSU is coming off only its third loss of the season, dropping a tight 3-1 match at Arkansas on Wednesday. The Wildcats (10-5, 3-2 SEC) defeated the Lady Razorbacks, 3-1, on Friday night. Kentucky owns a pair of victories over the two teams the Tigers have lost to in conference play this season, while LSU has a win over Auburn, one of the two teams to defeat the Wildcats this season.
“With Kentucky defeating Arkansas on Friday, it gives us a good opportunity to step up and put ourselves in a great situation in the SEC West,” said Flory. “Kentucky is a very good team. They have solid young players and a mix of veterans.”
Senior Ivana Kuzmic ranks second in the SEC and seventh in the nation in blocks per game this season. She is currently seven blocks away from 650 career blocks and would be just the third player in LSU history to post 650 career blocks. In addition, Kuzmic leads the Tigers and ranks 10th in the league in hitting percentage at .338.
Senior Jelena Mijatovic leads the Tigers and ranks fourth in the SEC with 4.52 kills per game. In addition, she leads the league and ranks 10th in the NCAA in service aces per game at 0.70. Junior Kassi Mikulik leads LSU and ranks ninth in the league with 3.50 digs per game.
Kentucky is led by Danielle Wallace with 4.42 kills per game, followed by Amy Kaplan with 3.05. Queen Nzenwa leads the Wildcats with 1.35 blocks per game. The 2004 SEC Defensive Player of the Year Jenni Casper leads Kentucky with 4.40 digs per game.
“This is going to be a match-up game,” said Flory. “If they get the right match-up they will be difficult to beat. If we get the right match-up then I think we can do some great things. With a new coach, they are playing with confidence and enthusiasm and have proven that they can beat some good teams.”
The Wildcats lead the all-time series with the Tigers, 22-17, including a 9-5 mark in Lexington. LSU has not defeated Kentucky in Memorial Coliseum since 1999, dropping the last three meetings on the road. Last season, the pair split two meetings, with each team winning their home match.