KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — After just their second weekend home in six weeks, the LSU volleyball team takes to the road again this weekend as the Tigers face Tennessee on Friday at 6 p.m. CDT in the Stokely Center and Kentucky on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. CDT in Memorial Gym.
Live statistics will be available for both matches on the official LSU athletics website, LSUsports.net. In addition, the match against the Wildcats will be televised locally in Lexington on CWKYT.
The Tigers (15-2, 7-1 SEC) swept a pair of SEC matches at home last weekend, posting a five-game come-from-behind win over Alabama to take over first place in the SEC Western Division. The Tigers then scored a 3-1 win over Mississippi State on Sunday and moved two games ahead of the Crimson Tide and Ole Miss in the West, one game behind Florida in the overall standings.
“I feel like Tennessee is a team that is going to make a run late in the season,” said LSU head coach Fran Flory. “They have a lot of young kids that have gotten a great deal of playing time and experience and they are getting better each weekend.”
After a strong pre-conference schedule, Tennessee hit a bump in the road so far in SEC play, coming in at 7-8 overall and 2-6 in conference play. After winning their first two league matches, the Lady Vols have dropped five straight, including a pair of five-game matches against Georgia and Arkansas.
“We’re expecting them to be very aggressive and fighting very hard for a win because they have lost a couple of matches recently,” said Flory. “I think they are going to feel like their backs are against a wall so we need to be very prepared for a very tough fight.”
As a team, LSU leads Tennessee in every offensive category, while the two are evenly matched defensively. The Tigers hold the advantage with 15.5 kills per game, compared with 14.2 for the Lady Vols. LSU also has a better hitting efficiency for the year at .219, while Tennessee is last in the SEC with a .189 mark. In addition, the Tigers lead the SEC in opponents hitting percentage and service aces, while the Lady Vols are seventh in opponents hitting percentage and last in aces per game.
Defensively, LSU, the two-time defending SEC Western Division champion, is posting 2.95 blocks per game, second-best in the conference, while Tennessee is posting 2.86 blocks per game, fifth in the league. The Lady Vols do hold a slight advantage in digs per game, averaging 16.91 per frame, compared with 16.32 per game for the Tigers.
LSU sophomore Lauren DeGirolamo was named the SEC Defensive Player of the Week on Monday. Against Alabama last weekend, the middle blocker from Belleville, Ill., was two kills shy of her career best with 17, while also leading the Tigers with six blocks and posting a match-high .467 hitting percentage.
DeGirolamo topped that performance against Mississippi State. She tied for the match high with 18 kills, one shy of her career best, while hitting at a match best .457 clip. She also led the match with nine blocks, one block shy of giving her the fifth double-double of her career. For the season, DeGirolamo leads LSU and ranks third in the SEC with 1.46 blocks per game, while boasting a team-best .368 hitting percentage, which ranks fourth in the league.
The Tigers are the only school in the league with two players in the top six in blocks per game. In addition to DeGirolamo, sophomore Brittnee Cooper is averaging 1.36 blocks per game, good enough for sixth in the conference. She posted a career-high 11 blocks against No. 6 Florida and earned SEC Player of the Week honors on Oct. 1.
LSU is led by Kyna Washington with 4.20 kills per game, third most in the conference. A two-time SEC Player of the Week in 2007, Washington has recorded double-figure kills in 14 of LSU’s 17 matches this season. In addition, Washington leads the league with 0.62 aces per game. For her career, the junior outside hitter is less than 100 kills away from becoming the 14th player in LSU history to record 1,000 career kills.
Junior Elena Martinez leads the SEC with an amazing 5.71 digs per game. In her first season as the starting libero, Martinez broke the school records with 34 digs in a five-game win Iowa and 33 digs in a four-game win over Arkansas. She has posted six of the top 18 dig marks in LSU history in only 17 matches this season.
While no Tennessee player is averaging over three kills per game, the Lady Vols have five players posting over two kills per game. Leah Hinkey leads Tennessee in three of the four major statistical categories. She leads the Lady Vols with 2.89 kills per game, a .297 hitting percentage and 1.38 blocks per game. The only statistical category she does not lead is digs per game, which is being led by Chloe Goldman with 4.98 per game.
“I think the return of (Yuliya) Stoyanova, if she can continue to more matches and more games, will certainly make them a big challenge for anyone late in the season,” said Flory of the increased playing time of the Lady Vol senior who had ACL surgery last year.
LSU leads the overall series with Tennessee, 27-15, and has won three straight and four of the last five over the Lady Vols. The Tigers’ last loss to Tennessee was a three-game sweep in the Stokely Center in 2004. Last season LSU fell behind by two games before rallying back for a five-game win in Knoxville and later in the season posted a three-game sweep of the Lady Vols in Baton Rouge.
The Tigers will return home for a mid-week match against Ole Miss on Oct. 17 which will be televised on Cox Sports Television, before taking on Arkansas on Friday, Oct. 19 at 7 p.m. All fans wearing pink against the Lady’Backs will get into the match for FREE and both teams will wear special pink shirts for warm-ups prior to the contest.