BATON ROUGE – The LSU volleyball team has put nine practice sessions in the books over its first five days of preseason camp in the auxiliary gym at the Maravich Center.
“I’ve learned this group is already coming together as a great team,” head coach Fran Flory said. “The unity and way they fit together is progressing faster than I thought it would. Overall, we’ve focused on ball control and that portion of our game has really developed. We have a lot of pieces and haven’t tried to put them together yet because we’re working on understanding individual portions of our system,”
The defending SEC champions entered camp with nine of its 14 players either freshmen or sophomores and Flory has impressed with how quick her young players have developed.
“Our young players have come out and shown some excellent leadership,” Flory said. “There weren’t voids just left in play but voids needed to be filled in communication and leadership. That’s a huge plus when we’re replacing the types of kids we have to replace from last year.”
The Tigers are scheduled to have 11 additional practice sessions over the next week leading into the annual Purple & Gold Scrimmage on Saturday, August 21 inside the Maravich Center. The point of emphasis heading into week two of camp is putting a lineup together.
“We’re two weeks away [from opening weekend], and we need figure out which players play well next to each other,” Flory said. “The emphasis in the beginning was to evaluate where they are and take them to where they need to be. Next week will be very lineup oriented with a lot of competition.”
Under Flory, LSU is one of only 20 programs to appear in each of the last five NCAA Tournaments. The Tigers open the 2010 season with Pacific, Siena and Texas A&M on August 27-28 as part of the Texas A&M Invitational.
Season tickets for the defending SEC champions are on-sale now at www.lsutix.net starting at $40 for adults and $25 for youth ages 3-12.
For all of the latest information on Tiger volleyball, log on to http://www.lsusports.net/volleyball or follow the program’s twitter page at http://twitter.com/lsuvolleyball.
LSU Volleyball Preseason Practice Schedule
Saturday, August 14
10 a.m.-1p.m.
Sunday, August 15
8:30-11 a.m. & 2-5 p.m.
Monday, August 16
8:30-11 a.m. & 2-5 p.m.
Tuesday, August 17
10 a.m.-1p.m.
Wednesday, August 18
8:30-11 a.m. & 2-5 p.m.
Thursday, August 19
8:30-11 a.m. & 2-5 p.m.
Friday, August 20
10 a.m.-1p.m.
Saturday, August 21
7 p.m. – Purple & Gold Scrimmage