BATON ROUGE — After falling behind two sets to one the LSU volleyball team came back to win the final two sets to beat Auburn, 23-25, 25-16, 18-25, 25-18, 15-6, on Friday night in the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
Senior Kyna Washington tallied the 34th double-double of her career as she put away 14 kills and recorded 13 digs in front of a crowd of 670 on Senior Night.
“You have to attribute our play tonight to Auburn,” LSU head coach Fran Flory said. “They did a great job of playing defense. That was one of the best defensive teams we have played all year. We knew Auburn was a team that is better than their record indicates, and they really did a great job of keeping the ball off the floor. We were pretty fortunate to win in five sets.”
As a team LSU (15-9, 10-7 SEC) had more kills (63-50), assists (57-47) and team blocks (10.0-3.0) than Auburn, but Auburn recorded more digs, 85-77, than LSU.
In the first set LSU moved in front 16-11 and built a 20-17 lead, but Auburn responded to tie it at 21 and again at 22 before scoring three of the next four points to go up, 1-0. LSU out hit Auburn .371 to .100 in the second set as LSU pulled away for a 25-16 win to tie the match at 1-1. Auburn got its offense going in the third set as they out hit LSU .469 to .162 to take a 2-1 lead.
“After the third set I told the players just to relax and play,” Flory said. “We had to settle in to a rhythm and understand that we can control the tempo and outcome and not push so hard. We settled down and did a nice job of finishing.”
LSU responded by cranking up its defense in the final two sets, posting four team blocks in both while holding Auburn to a .025 hitting percentage in the fourth set and a -.167 clip in the fifth.
Auburn (6-22, 1-16 SEC) was led offensively by senior Jessica Glover and sophomore Jonelle Wallace who each posted double-doubles. Glover finished with 16 kills and 11 digs while Wallace contributed 11 kills and 14 digs. Defensively Auburn was led by sophomore Sara Shanks who posted a double-double with 21 digs to go along with 39 assists.
Junior Sam Dabbs joined Washington in recording a double-double as Dabbs finished with a match-high 44 assists and 10 digs. Freshman Michele Williams, who was named SEC Freshman of the Week on Monday, continued her strong play as she pounded 16 kills on a match-high .382 hitting percentage. Four Tigers posted double-digit kills as junior Brittnee Cooper finished with 11 and sophomore Angela Bensend contributed 10.
Williams was also outstanding on defense as she tied a career-high with six digs to go along with four blocks, including one solo. Cooper, the SEC leader in blocks per set, led everyone with six blocks. Senior Elena Martinez, who was also honored after the match, recorded 22 digs which moved her into fourth place in LSU’s all-time career digs list as she passed Jennifer Hampton. Martinez has accumulated 1,321 digs in her career.
With the win LSU increased its lead in the SEC West to two-and-a-half matches over Ole Miss and Alabama with three matches remaining. Ole Miss was swept at Alabama on Friday to fall to 7-9 in the league while Alabama improved to 7-9.
LSU’s win over Auburn also increased LSU’s series lead to 32-11 and marked the 15th straight win over Auburn dating back to Nov. 5, 2000.
LSU will not play again this weekend but will be back in action Nov. 21 at Arkansas.