BATON ROUGE – The No. 23 LSU volleyball team embarked on the 2010 campaign Saturday with its annual Purple & Gold Scrimmage at the Maravich Center.
The purple squad, guided by assistant coach Steve Loeswick, earned a 2-1 comeback win [24-26, 27-25, 15-6] over assistant coach Jill Lytle Wilson‘s gold team. Prior the event, the Tigers played host to a free Kid’s Clinic (photo gallery) for about 40 children.
“The scrimmage served every purpose we wanted to,” head coach Fran Flory said. “We had excellent crowd support, and we appreciate the fan support. It’s a good step for our team and certainly showed us a few things we need to improve on before Friday. We love teaching kids, a lot of our players want to be teachers. Building a following of our sport in this community from the grass roots is very important.”
Angela Bensend powered home 10 kills to go along with a quartet of aces to fuel the purple team.
“Benny has always been a go-to,” Flory said. “She’s been overshadowed by the great players around her. The fact she played at this level tonight wasn’t a surprise to us. I also liked what she did serving and blocking. She was a stabilizing force, and we expect to be a solid outside hitter for us this season.”
Desiree Elliott and Michele Williams knocked six and five kills, respectively. On the defensive end, Nicole Willis posted a team-best four blocks.
“I thought Desi was quick, we probably could have used both of our middles more,” Flory said. “Nicole was excellent on the right side block. It’s just a matter of her figuring out our system and how she fits. She’s one of those players when the lights come on, her game elevates.”
LSU starts fall semester classes Monday before opening the 2010 season against Pacific, Siena and Texas A&M as part of the Texas A&M Invitational on August 27-28. 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, follow the program’s twitter page at http://twitter.com/lsuvolleyball and check out the team’s official blog at http://lsuvolleyball.posterous.com.