BATON ROUGE — LSU’s Ivana Kuzmic was named the Southeastern Conference Volleyball Defensive Player of the Week, it was announced on Monday afternoon.
Leading the team to a 2-0 mark last weekend, including a three-game sweep of Alabama, which is receiving votes in the national poll, Kuzmic led the team in blocking for the week and led the match against the Crimson Tide in blocks as well as tying for the match-lead in blocks against Auburn.
Against Auburn in the first match of the weekend, Kuzmic posted six blocks, along with six kills as LSU posted a 3-0 win over the Tigers of Auburn. Two days later, the senior from Split, Croatia, posted nine blocks against Alabama as the Tigers routed the Crimson Tide in three games. She also posted four solo blocks, which is tied for the fifth-most in a three-game match in school history.
It marked the sixth match of the season with nine or more blocks. In addition, she moved into the top 10 in LSU single-season history with 128 block assists. She is only 17 blocks from recording an astounding 700 for her career.
For the week, she averaged 2.50 blocks per game and 2.17 kills per game with a .286 hitting percentage. She leads the team and ranks in the top 10 in the NCAA in blocks per game this season and leads the team in hitting percentage this year.
Despite only two seasons at LSU, she is just 13 solo blocks from moving into the top 10 in LSU career history and nine block assists from moving into the top 10 in school career history.
This is the fourth SEC Defensive Player of the Week honor of her career, including three this season. In addition, she was named the SEC Player of the Week on Aug. 29 of this year.
The Tigers will take to the road for the final time in the regular season as LSU faces Ole Miss on Friday at 7 p.m. in Oxford before closing out the weekend against Mississippi State in Starkville on Sunday at 1:30 p.m.
Next week, LSU will finish the regular season at home against Arkansas and Kentucky. The Tigers are undefeated at home this season and will match up against the SEC West-leading Lady Razorbacks on Wednesday, Nov. 9 at 7 p.m. LSU will then close out the regular season against Kentucky at 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 11.