BATON ROUGE — LSU middle blocker Brittnee Cooper garnered SEC Offensive Player of the Week honors Monday as announced by the league office. This is Cooper’s third SEC weekly award of the season and fourth of her career.
“We’re excited that we were able to get Brittnee back into her offensive rhythm last weekend,” head coach Fran Flory said. “She and Sam Dabbs worked extremely hard on their tempo and timing last week in practice. Our ball control also played a huge part in Brittnee earning this award and created highly successful opportunities for her.”
Cooper powered home 31 kills on a scorching .600 hitting percentage as the Tigers (18-5, 12-2 SEC) defeated Georgia and Auburn last weekend. She produced four or more kills in six of her seven sets played en route to 4.43 per set average, a full kill better than her season average.
Cooper also posted 11 blocks highlighted by six stuffs in a 3-0 sweep of Auburn. The Houston, Texas product enters Friday’s match at Ole Miss 13 kills away from reaching 1,000 for her career.
LSU also moved up to one spot to No. 19 in the American Volleyball Coaches Association released Monday. The Tigers have won 11 of last 12 with eight of the 11 victories coming via the sweep.
LSU tallied 393 points and are joined by No. 9 Florida and No. 11 Kentucky from the SEC. Tennessee is receiving votes in this week’s poll.
The Tigers have opened up a 5.5 match lead over Auburn in the SEC Western Division race and trimmed its magic number down to one to secure the program’s fifth straight division crown.
LSU returns to action and starts a four-match road swing Friday at Ole Miss. First serve scheduled for 7 p.m. with live stats 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.
AVCA Division I Coaches Top 25 Poll
2009 Poll #10: November 2, 2009
Rank, School (First-Place Votes), Total Points, 2009 Record, Last Week
1. Penn State (50), 1490, 24-0, 1
2. Texas (10), 1450, 18-0, 2
3. Hawai’i, 1378, 20-2, 3
4. Washington, 1297, 19-2, 5
t5. Illinois, 1174, 18-3, 6
t5. Stanford, 1174, 15-6, 4
7. UCLA, 1105, 18-6, 11
8. Iowa State, 1079, 19-3, 9
9. Florida, 1006, 18-3, 10
10. Nebraska, 975, 16-6, 8
11. Kentucky, 898, 22-2, 12
12. Minnesota, 840, 17-7, 7
13. California, 742, 13-8, 14
14. Oregon, 729, 15-5, 15
15. Michigan, 641, 19-6, 13
16. Florida State, 599, 21-2, 17
17. Southern California, 555, 15-8, 16
18. Arizona, 510, 16-6, 18
19. LSU, 393, 18-5, 20
20. Baylor, 296, 19-5, 22
21. Saint Louis, 229, 17-6, 24
22. San Diego, 211, 15-5, 19
23. Texas A&M, 139, 14-6, 25
24. Washington State, 96, 16-6, 21
t25. Northern Iowa, 82, 22-2, NR
t25. St. Mary’s (Calif.), 82, 16-4, NR
Others Receiving Votes and appearing on two or more ballots: UC Santa Barbara 63; Notre Dame 55; UC Irvine 46; Dayton 35; Florida International 23; Colorado State 17; Oregon State 16; Michigan State 15; Long Beach State 14; Ohio State 14; Tennessee 13; Duke 12; Pepperdine 7; Oklahoma 6
Five schools were listed on only one ballot for a total of 12 points.
Dropped Out: UC Irvine (23)