OXFORD, Miss. – Going up against a team that had not lost at home and a packed crowd, the LSU volleyball team did not get lost in the moment and in front of a national television audience swept the Ole Miss Rebels 28-26, 25-18, 25-20 to extend its winning streak to six matches, while also giving head coach Fran Flory her 309th victory to become the all-time wins leader in LSU volleyball history Wednesday night in Oxford.
With a balanced attack and suffocating defense, LSU (11-7, 6-3 SEC) the Tigers were able to take the crowd of over 800 out of the match early by hitting .333 as a group and holding Ole Miss (18-4, 4-4) to just a .182 hitting clip in the three sets to close its longest road trip of the season with a perfect 4-0 mark.
“I thought we showed great poise tonight, and I’m proud of our effort,” Flory said. “We were balanced and we controlled our opportunities. We didn’t allow them to make runs, but they could never seize the momentum. We held the energy on our side and did a great job of controlling the match because of that.”
Now in her 17th season at the helm of the Tigers, Flory passed former LSU coach Scott Luster, whom she worked under during LSU’s Final Four runs in the early 90s, helping return the Tigers to prominence with five 20-win seasons, multiple SEC Western Division titles and a regular season conference championship, among a host of All-American and all-conference players.
“It’s my dream to be here, It’s my dream job and you get to do it for as long as I have, I’m thankful, privileged and humbled to be that,” Flory said. “That’s a lot of wins by a lot of players and a lot of hard work by staff members. Jill Lytle Wilson has been here with me most of the way as a player and coach and that’s one example of the credit that should go to all of the coaches and players who have been here along the way.”
Sophomore Briana Holman led a trio of Tigers with double-digit kills, finishing with a match-high 16 kills on a .414 hitting percentage and six blocks. Mimi Eugene and the reigning SEC Freshman of the Week in Gina Tillis each produced 12 kills, with both hitting above .300 in the match.
Malorie Pardo led the match with 47 assists, while earning five digs which now makes her the 14th Tiger in program history to eclipse 1,000 for a career, and becoming only the second to have over 4,000 assists and 1,000 digs in a career.
Haley Smith and Cati leak each finished tied for the match lead in digs with nine each, with five different players each having over five digs in the match for LSU.
Melanie Crow finished with 13 digs for Ole Miss, while Lexi Thompson had 10. Aubrey Edie finished with 32 assists, while Thomson also finished with nine digs.
LSU opened the scoring by scoring five of the first six points of the match to go up 5-1, highlighted by back-to-back Holman kills to cement the hot start for the Tigers. The team continued to play well, but once LSU went up 9-6, the Rebels began to slowly wake up and scored the next three points to tie the match for the first time at 9-9. It wouldn’t be the last time that Ole Miss fought back from a deficit, tying the set at 12-12 and 13-13 in the midst of another three-point swing that gave the Rebels their first lead up 15-13.
The Tigers seemed unable to get out of their own way, hitting into errors both attacking and serving while Ole Miss went up by as many as four at 20-16 forcing an LSU timeout. The break worked as LSU netted the next three straight to pull within one with back-to-back Eugene kills, tying it back up at 20-20 after a Leak block out of the timeout. Things were tense from that point on with neither side giving an inch or anything larger than a one-point lead to force extra points. With the set tied at 26, a Pardo kill made it 27-26 LSU, with Tillis registering a one-handed solo block to earn the final point to make it 28-26.
LSU would have to work for everything early in the second set, falling behind before eventually stabilizing the strong offensive start the team had in the first set. Trailing 8-6, The Tigers went on a 5-0 run to go up 11-8, shifting the momentum back to their side. That run paled in comparison to what LSU did for the rest of the match, as the squad went on to outscore Ole Miss 11-5 to go up 21-13, its biggest lead of the set, eventually going on to win 25-18.
Up two sets, the Tigers raced out to a big lead early in the third, going up 5-1 before Ole Miss calling a timeout, with it doing little good as before and after the break Eugene was able to find a hole in the defense for back-to-back service aces. The lead eventually grew to 8-2 for the Tigers, but the Rebels fought back in a big way, going on a 6-1 run to make it a one-score contest at 9-8.
Although Ole Miss was never able to knot the match, they never fell behind by more than a handful of points, keeping it close throughout the duration of the third, but Ole Miss would not be able to pull off a big enough rally in the end as the Tigers closed out the match holding Ole Miss to just 20 points in taking the set 25-20.
“We expect to continue this and get better,” Flory said. “We’re excited about what the rest of the season holds and excited about the next couple of recruiting classes and it’s a tribute to this staff for putting us in the position that we’re in now.”
LSU will be back in action on Sunday afternoon, hosting the Georgia Bulldogs at 1 p.m. at the Pete Maravich Center in Baton Rouge.
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