BATON ROUGE ? Marina Skender and Brittnee Cooper combined for 25 kills on a .346 hitting percentage to pace the No. 24 LSU volleyball team to its seventh consecutive victory and a 3-0 sweep over Arkansas [25-17, 25-21, 25-19] Friday at the Maravich Center in the program’s ?Dig Pink’ event.
Dr. KC White, Dean of Students and Interim Vice Chancellor of Student Life, led a 1-mile ?Victory Walk’ prior to the match. She is a breast cancer survivor and served as a guest coach for the Tigers.
“This was a great event,” head coach Fran Flory said. “We had almost 100 people slapping hands on the court [during introductions], and I thought the Victory Walk was a huge success. It’s certainly a worthy cause. Our staff did a tremendous job putting it together along with UREC.”
LSU (14-4, 8-1 SEC) extended its winning streak to 24 straight matches over SEC Western Division opponents and has won its last 37 conference matches against league foes other than Florida and Kentucky dating back to the 2004 season inside the Maravich Center.
Skender ripped 15 kills to push her streak to 13 consecutive matches with double-figure spikes and tacked on five blocks. After a slow start, Cooper got into a rhythm and popped eight kills on 12 swings over the final two frames.
Sam Dabbs distributed 33 assists and added eight digs as LSU connected for a .316 team hitting percentage. The Tigers have notched over a.300 team clip in five of their last seven matches.
Lauren DeGirolamo chipped in five kills and six digs, while Michele Williams recorded seven blocks to go along with four kills. Lauren Waclawczyk reeled in eight digs and passed out a career-best six assists.
“We can’t take things for granted and expect that we’re going to walk out and win,” Flory said. “We’ve played well up to this point because we’ve prepared well and I don’t think we prepared very well. I think we did physically; we didn’t mentally. We have to understand that mental preparation is just as important, sometimes more important, than physical preparation.”
LSU stormed out to a 7-3 lead in the opening set behind its strong defense that forced Arkansas into three hitting errors. The Razorbacks responded with six of the next eight points to even the score at 9-9. Skender fired back with three spikes of her own to spark a 6-2 run for LSU to make it 16-11. Arkansas got back to 16-13 before the Tigers closed the frame on a 9-4 spurt for the 25-17 win.
At 11-10 in set two, LSU received a pair of Skender kills coupled with two Arkansas attack errors to surge ahead 15-11. The Tigers used three blocks down the stretch and connected for a match-best .364 hitting percentage to secure a 25-21 victory. Skender and Cooper teamed for 11 of LSU’s 14 kills in the frame.
“I was saying thank goodness for Marina Skender in the first two sets because she was the only one that really kept us ahead in the match,” Flory said. “She manages so many plays and does such a great job of taking care of our team. She also shows a level of confidence that she will make a play when the time comes, and provided we give her the opportunity.”
LSU jumped out to a 15-6 lead in the third set and never looked back in the 25-19 triumph. Dabbs set five Tigers, including herself to multiple kills in the frame. Arkansas reeled off five straight points down 24-14 before a service error ended the match.
The Razorbacks (10-11, 4-6 SEC) were paced by three-time SEC Freshman of the Week Jasmine Norton, who cranked a match-high 16 kills and corralled six digs. Kelli Stipanovich sprinkled in 10 kills and was limited to a .074 hitting percentage for the Razorbacks.
LSU concludes its four-match homestand Sunday at 1:30 p.m. against Ole Miss. Live video and stats are available in the Geaux Zone on LSUsports.net. Fans also can follow in-match updates of the four-time defending SEC Western Division champions via www.twitter.com/lsuvolleyball.
Volleyball ? LSU vs. Arkansas (October 16. 2009)
LSU Outside Hitter Marina Skender
On Importance of Following up Florida Win …
“it was a big deal when we beat Florida [last Sunday] but it was just one match in the SEC. It did help us a lot but it was very important to come back against Arkansas because they’re good. They’re going to fight back, and I don’t think that we really performed at our best level because we had some trouble fighting. But we won so that’s good.
On Improving for Ole Miss on Sunday
“It’s really important because Ole Miss took Florida to five sets and we can’t perform at the level we played at today. We will get together tomorrow, talk about the mistakes we made and get ready to play on Sunday.”
LSU Head Coach Fran Flory
On the ?Dig Pink’ Event
“This was a great event. We had almost 100 people slapping hands on the court, and I think the walk was a huge success. It’s certainly a very worthy cause. Our staff did a tremendous job putting it together along with UREC, and I think it was a very positive event.”
On the Offense’s Rhythm
“We really struggled to find a rhythm especially at the beginning of this match. I didn’t think it would take as long for us to get a rhythm. I thought in the third set we finally got going a little bit, but we’re in midterms just as everyone else. We changed our practice schedule a little bit and that affected us so we learned something about ourselves this week. We’ll be better because of it.
On the Need to Bounce Back Sunday
“We can’t take things for granted and expect that we’re going to walk out and win. We’ve played well up to this point because we’ve prepared well and I don’t think we prepared very well. I think we did physically; we didn’t mentally. We have to understand that mental preparation is just as important, sometimes more important, than physical preparation. I thought we weren’t very mentally prepared for this match.
On Marina Skender‘s Performance
“I was saying thank goodness for Marina Skender in the first two sets because she was the only one that really kept us ahead in the match. She manages so many plays and does such a great job of taking care of our team. She also shows a level of confidence that she will make a play when the time comes, and provided we give her the opportunity. I think Sam did a good job of that too. I don’t think our passing was in good tempo. We weren’t in a good rhythm and just kind of fought ourselves all night. Marina did a good job of balancing that and kind of counteracting that we weren’t in rhythm.”
On Sunday’s Ole Miss Match
“Ole Miss is playing better because they have their people back. They’ve had some injuries, really battled back and forth to get a solid lineup. I think they’re finally healthy. Watching the match on Wednesday [against Arkansas], they’re playing very well. They’re pretty physical and a very different style of team than Arkansas so we’re going to really have to prepare tomorrow to be ready for that.”