BATON ROUGE, La. – After a grueling stretch of nine consecutive matches on the road, the LSU volleyball team makes its home debut on Wednesday night, taking on the 14th-ranked Kentucky Wildcats at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center at 8 p.m. on ESPNU.
All home matches for LSU volleyball are free to the public thanks to The Advocate’s “Geaux Free” campaign throughout the season. Wednesday night is the team’s annual Gold Match, where the first 500 fans in attendance will receive a “Geauxld Digger” tank top, as all fans are encouraged to wear gold in support of the Tigers.
Along with it being the Gold Match, Wednesday will also be a S.T.R.I.P.E.S reunion, Tiger Night and student point night. The senior philanthropy project for this season is Meals from Mike, where at every home match this season, non-perishable food donations will be accepted and then given to a local food bank in the Baton Rouge area.
LSU has a bit of confidence heading into the conference slate, winning the UTSA Classic last weekend in San Antonio to sit at 5-4 on the year after a solid string of non-conference opponents on the docket. The Tigers took two from Baylor and one from UTSA during the weekend, winning four of their last five matches overall heading into action against the Wildcats.
“I think last weekend was huge for our confidence level, and we knew all three of those matches were going to be against some tough opponents,” head coach Fran Flory said. “The biggest step this this weekend was Baylor taking our best player away from us, and having to evolve and find another factor to win and that was big for us.”
Although that match was a little bit different than the previous one the day before when LSU won in four, the Tigers still got an all-tournament performance out of Briana Holman who averaged nearly four kills and exactly two blocks in another stellar weekend. Holman, who currently leads the team with a .397 kills per set and 1.59 blocks per set average leads the league averaging over five points per set.
Holman wasn’t the only one to have a standout weekend, as the other all-tournament performance came from freshman Mimi Eugene, who pieced together double-digit kill matches, both coming against the Bears, on the weekend as the Houston, Texas, native continues to become comfortable in a starting role on the team.
Along those same offensive lines, it only took nine matches for setter Malorie Pardo to eclipse 4,000 assists for her career, as with 357 already this season she is well on her way from becoming just the second player ever to have four seasons with 1,000 assists to hold the record with former Tiger Daniela Reis. Pardo leads the team with five double-doubles on the year as well, earning one over the weekend.
Although her streak of double-digit kill matches was halted at seven, Cati Leak continues to find ways to terminate shots, averaging 3.05 kills per set, while defensively sporting a 2.27 digs per set average as well.
Defensively, the Tigers have been strong at the net thanks to the play of Madi Mahaffey, Pardo and Holman in the blocking game, while getting some solid play in the back led by Haley Smith and her 3.86 digs per set. The Tigers currently have four players averaging no less than two digs per set, averaging 13.62 as a group.
For the freshmen, this will be their first taste of a true home-court advantage on Wednesday, as the Tiger faithful will be able to see the group in action as the bulk of the class has been integral in the team’s recent success.
“I don’t think you could get any bigger, but that’s why they came to LSU,” Flory said. “We’ll work through and try to prepare them mentally and emotionally and just trust and go play hard.”
The Wildcats are the fourth ranked team LSU will face this season, entering the week 10-2 on the season and winners of the last four. Kentucky defeated Lipscomb and Xavier in four sets last weekend in Lexington, as the team is a perfect 6-0 in four set matches in 2014.
Kentucky has only played in two true road matches this season with LSU being the third this week, traveling to face in-state rival Louisville and North Carolina in the Carolina Classic in their only tournament away from the state after hosting two of their own.
“Kentucky has always been a well-coached team and I have a ton of respect for their staff, who I believe do things the right way,” Flory said. “We have to be confident in what we’re doing and not hit the panic button when things don’t go our way. Whoever wins the serve and pass battle and plays through the highs and lows of the match will be the winner at the end of the night.”
For all of the latest news and information on Tiger volleyball, visit www.lsusports.net/volleyball. Fans can also follow the program on its social media outlets at www.Facebook.com/lsuvolleyball along with @lsuvolleyball and @lsucoachfran on Twitter and @lsuvb on Instagram.