BATON ROUGE, La. – Currently on a three-match winning streak, the LSU volleyball team returns to action on Friday evening, traveling to take on the Missouri Tigers at 6 p.m. inside the Hearnes Center in Columbia on the SEC Network.
The Tigers are currently in their longest conference road stretch of the season which began this past Sunday, and by the time the team returns to the friendly confines of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in two weeks will have taken on Mizzou, Kentucky this Sunday at 12:30 p.m. and Ole Miss next Wednesday in Oxford.
Paul Sunderland and Nell Fortner will have the call for the SEC Network telecast on Friday, while LSU will take on the 12th-ranked Wildcats on SEC Network+ this weekend.
After starting the SEC slate with three consecutive losses, LSU has bounced back in a big way to play its best volleyball at possibly the right time in winning three of its last five and six of the last 10 overall to sit at 8-7 on the year and 3-3 in conference play. With just 12 matches remaining in the regular season, the squad is hoping it can continue to trend upward in the league standings.
“We had some pretty tough matches early, but I think we were still confident that this group could fight through the adversity and get to a point now where I think we are beginning to put it all together at the right time,” head coach Fran Flory said. “I think we are doing a better job of controlling the momentum and holding on to it early, rather than trying to find it later on during matches.”
Coming off of its first sweep of the season, the Tigers put together another banner performance in a sweep of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers last Sunday, once again hitting .300 as a team and holding control of the match from the beginning. Over the course of the two matches last week, the Tigers had a hitting percentage of .333, while holding both the Bulldogs and Lady Vols .070 attacking clip.
LSU’s penchant for holding opposing teams to low hitting figures has played well into the Tigers’ favor through the season, as the team is 4-1 on the year when teams hit .200 or lower in a match. LSU has also been pretty solid as of late, as going back to the match against Arkansas, the team has earned a .300 or higher hitting percentage in seven of the last 11 sets overall as a group.
Leading the charge in each of the last two matches was freshman Mimi Eugene, who led the team in kills last week averaging over four per set, an ace per set and two digs per set in one of her best two-match stretches of the season. The Houston, Texas, native had 15 kills against MSU, and came back with 11 against UT with five of her six service aces on the week coming in that one match alone.
Already holding all but one of the best individual single-game hitting percentages for the team on the season, sophomore middle blocker Briana Holman had arguably her most efficient and forceful matches against Tennessee as she finished hitting .667 with 12 kills and no errors against the Lady Vols. Already in the top 10 in a host of SEC categories, Holman continues to lock down a top five spot in the nation in blocks, averaging 1.63 which is fourth.
The career watch continues for setter Malorie Pardo, who continues her upward climb not just in the assists category but also in digs as she is now 24 away from earning 1,000. Pardo was 6-for-6 in kills and attempts against UT, while also serving up more than 30 assists as well in the win.
Seemingly, the core of the group continues to solidify in various ways, including defensively where Haley Smith continues to rack up four digs per set and was just one of five players to average over two per set along with Katie Lindelow and Cati Leak, who combined for 13 kills last Sunday as well, while Emily Ehrle again earned the start and led the team in blocks with three and chipped in four kills.
The next three matches for the Tigers will be a better gauge on where the team is at, as Missouri is just a half-game ahead of LSU, while Kentucky is one of two undefeated teams in conference play along with the Florida Gators.
Missouri enters the weekend 12-8 on the year and 3-2 in the league, coming off of a four-set loss in an out-of-conference tilt against UMKC on Monday night. However, Missouri has a 12-match conference winning streak at home in the Hearnes Center, dating back to its undefeated run through the 2013 regular season and conference championship.
One of the leading players for Missouri is Carly Kan, who was named the SEC Freshman of the Year last season and is one of the top double-double producers in the country. Kan and Holman were both a part of the collegiate national team trip to China over the summer, spending 10 days abroad and playing various teams in the country.
“This is a little bit of a different Missouri team than last year, but they are still a very good team and will begin what I think is our toughest two-match stretch this season,” Flory said. “I think they are a lot like us, trying to find out how to put these new pieces in place, but still expecting it to be a really good match.”
The all-time series is still a budding rivalry between the two teams, as Friday will serve as just the sixth meeting ever. Missouri has won each of the last three meetings, the first three since the 1980s where LSU won both.
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