BATON ROUGE — The Tigers have yet to lose a game at home this season as the LSU volleyball team swept Ole Miss, 30-19, 31-29, 30-15, in Southeastern Conference action on Sunday afternoon at the Maravich Center.
The crowd of 742 watched the Tigers improve to 15-4 on the season and 5-3 in the SEC. The Rebels fell to 7-13 overall and 1-7 in league play. LSU remains in second place in the SEC West, only one game out of first, and moved into a tie for fourth overall, only one game out of second.
“I think it was really important for us to do this,” said LSU head coach Fran Flory. “We kind of got off task in terms of our confidence level and in terms of our level of execution and what we were doing offensively. I think that the best thing out of everything that happened this weekend for us is the fact that the things we worked on in practice and the things we talked about in terms of execution were addressed. We certainly did a great job. We showed that if we get a chance to train and finally be at home to train, then we are going to continue to get better and better and improve as we go.”
After dominating Ole Miss in the first game, the Tigers fell behind by as many as seven in game two, 16-9, before making an 11-3 run to take the lead, 20-19. Trailing 28-26, LSU sent it to game point, 29-28 with a 3-0 run. On the Tigers’ second game point, a block by Melody Clark and Daniela Romero gave LSU the game, 31-29. The Tigers came out of the locker room to again dominate the Rebels in game three. After Ole Miss got as close as 5-4, LSU pulled away, closing out the match with a 9-1 run.
The Tigers once again dominated the match in blocking, posting 11 total blocks to only four for the Rebels. Clark led match with six blocks. Ivana Kuzmic and Marina Skender each recorded four blocks, while Romero and Kyna Washington added three each.
LSU also recorded a .282 hitting percentage compared to just a .124 mark for Ole Miss. The Tigers had no player hit at less than a .200 clip, while the Rebels had only two players hit above .200.
I’m really proud of what we did on our side of the net in both matches this weekend,” said Flory. “Our struggle had been offensively. Our hitting percentage dropped dramatically and this weekend we got back on track. It starts with ball control and opportunities out of serve receive and defense. We addressed it last week in practice and it showed.”
For the match, LSU out killed Ole Miss, 45-38, and out dug the Rebels, 41-38, while posting eight service aces, including four by Romero and three by Skender, compared to just two for Ole Miss. Jelena Mijatovic led the Tigers offensively with 12 kills, followed by Washington with nine and Skender with eight. Kassi Mikulik led LSU with 10 digs, followed by nine each by Mijatovic and Skender. Romero led LSU with 30 assists and moved past 2,500 for her career.
“We went to a 5-1 with Dee (Romero) and she’s doing a great job,” said Flory. “It also opened up some new possibilities offensively for Marina. We knew we would do this at some point, but we didn’t know when. We were kind of waiting for the right time and I think we finally found it.”
Jaclyn Toohey led Ole Miss with 13 kills off the bench, followed by Nikki Hill with 12. Lauren Moffett led the Rebels with two blocks, while Nicole Mahan led the match with 12 digs.
The Tigers improved to 39-11 all-time against Ole Miss, including a 17-4 mark at home. The win also avenged a loss to the Rebels at home last season.
LSU returns to the road next weekend as the Tigers travel to face Georgia and No. 5 Florida. LSU will take on the Bulldogs on Friday at 6 p.m. (CT), before closing out the road trip against the Gators at 12:30 p.m. (CT). on Sunday.
LSU def. Ole Miss, 30-19, 31-29, 30-15
Ole Miss (7-13, 1-7 SEC) (Kills-aces-blocks) – Nikki Hill 12-0-1; Lauren Moffett 6-0-2; Ashley Shear 1-0-0; Rachel Kieckhaefer 1-0-0; Tricia Agee 0-0-1; Tara Langley 0-1-0; Jaclyn Toohey 13-0-0; Allison Weber 0-1-0; Nicole Mahan 0-0-0; Kristen Carroll 3-0-1; Emily Jones 2-0-1; Totals 38-2-4.0. (Assists) – Ashleigh Shear 30. (Dig leaders) – Nicole Mahan 12.
LSU (15-4, 5-3 SEC) (Kills-aces-blocks) – Jelena Mijatovic 12-1-1; Kyna Washington 9-0-3; Marina Skender 8-3-4; Ivana Kuzmic 7-0-4; Daniela Romero 5-4-3; Melody Clark 4-0-6;Lauren Leaumont 0-0-0; Kassi Mikulik 0-0-0; Totals 45-8-11.0. (Assists) – Daniela Romero 30. (Dig leaders) – Kassi Mikulik 10.