BATON ROUGE, La. – In the midst of its longest stretch of home matches this season, the LSU volleyball team returns to action on Sunday afternoon, hosting the Arkansas Razorbacks at 1 p.m. at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge.
A live stream of the match will be available on the league’s digital network platform SEC Network+ for desktops, while available through WatchESPN for tablets and mobile devices.
All matches this season are free and open to the public thanks to LSU’s partnership with The Advocate’s “Geaux Free” promotion throughout the year. Sunday’s match will serve as a camp reunion, as fans who attended any of LSU volleyball’s camps over the summer are invited to the match, with fans being able to take a photo with the volleyball team immediately following the contest’s conclusion.
The first 1,000 people through the doors of the PMAC will also receive an LSU volleyball drawstring bag, with a post-match autograph session at the end of the day.
Currently on its longest losing streak of the year, the Tigers will be looking to break out of its slump against the Razorbacks on Sunday after falling to 5-7 on the year and 0-3 in the Southeastern Conference in a 3-1 loss to the No. 9 Florida Gators on Friday evening. It was a tough loss for the group, especially after leading in the fourth set and three points shy of taking a top 10 team to a fifth set.
“They’re a very good team; they backed us down and you have to credit them because they didn’t give us much,” head coach Fran Flory said. “They made us earn it. But I think the good part of it is we made them earn it. We took them out of what they wanted to do. And certainly our game plan worked, but we not able to sustain it long enough and that’s the unfortunate part.”
It was the second time in the last two matches that LSU had a team fearful of going to an anything-goes fifth set, as the team has made its living playing in matches lasting just four sets all season with nine of their 12 this year lasting just two sets out of the intermission break.
Continuing to tweak the lineup, another stellar performance from a newcomer highlighted a pretty solid day all around, as freshman Gina Tillis produced a new season best performance with 15 kills in her very first start in Purple and Gold. When coupled with another solid outing from Briana Holman, who finished with 17 kills on a .419 percentage and seven blocks, the duo combined for 32 of LSU’s 46 kills on the day.
“She got better and better, and took some big swings,” Flory said. “She started a little nervous, as a freshman would in this big of a match, but I thought she paid great and earned her chance to be on the court more for the remainder of this weekend and later this week hopefully.”
Malorie Pardo earned her sixth match with at least 40 assists against the Gators, while Haley Smith finished a dig shy of tying for the match lead with 17, as she has earned double figure digs in each match and continues to average over four per set. Katie Lindelow played in just three of the four sets on the night, but continued to make an impact, earning five of her seven kills on the night in the fourth set, while finishing with seven digs.
The Razorbacks come into their only match of the week sitting at 8-7 on the year and 2-0 in SEC play after earning sweeps of Tennessee and Mississippi State a week ago. Arkansas is hitting the road for the first time in league competition, as its trek to Baton Rouge will be the only one for the visitors in their first five conference games, returning home next week to host two more in Fayetteville.
LSU will be looking to stop an Arkansas attack that has hit better in the last two matches than it had in the previous 13, while the Razorbacks will be trying to do the same against the Tigers, as both teams come into the tilt as two of the better blocking corps in the SEC.
The Tigers won the last meeting between the two teams in Baton Rouge last season in a five set thriller, as while Arkansas has won three of the last five, LSU has won six of the last 10 meetings dating back to the 2009 season. This will be the first of two meetings this season between the two sides, with the second coming in November.
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.