BATON ROUGE, La. – The LSU volleyball team opens a key stretch of matches on Friday night, welcoming the South Carolina Gamecocks to the Pete Maravich Assembly Center for a conference clash with first serve set for 7 p.m. in Baton Rouge.
The remaining four matches for the team in the 2014 season are free to the general public, as the team will be hosting children from the local area for East Baton Rouge School Night. The first 500 fans in attendance will receive LSU volleyball trading cards upon arrival, while immediately following the match, all kids will be invited to come onto the PMAC floor for a special trick-or-treat experience with the team.
For $10, fans can also partake in this week’s Friday Night Meal Deal, which is garlic pepper grilled fish, with chef du jour starch and vegetable. To reserve your meal deal, email promotions@lsu.edu with the quantity of meals, drink choice and name by Thursday afternoon.
The Tigers enter a hectic weekend looking to close its best month of the season on a high note on Friday, riding the wave of a seven-match winning streak and sitting third overall in the league standings at 12-7 on the season and 7-3 in the Southeastern Conference. With six wins during the month of October, LSU has re-entered the conversation for not only a top-five league finish, but another trip to the NCAA Tournament sitting 25th in the latest release of the RPI rankings earlier this week.
After the match against the Gamecocks on Friday, the Tigers will hit the road for two big tests beginning with a rematch with Arkansas on Sunday, before taking on Texas A&M next Thursday night in the only meeting between the two clubs this season in College Station. For now, LSU is staying focused on the task at hand in South Carolina up next.
“This is certainly an exciting time and I know the team has really started to find its place, but all we are going to do is focus on the next match and not look too far down the line,” head coach Fran Flory said. “South Carolina is a very good team, and they are going to give us a very good match on Friday.”
Since opening up the month with a loss to Florida, the group has not looked back since, reeling off seven of the last 10 overall, hitting nearly .300 during that time as a squad while holding teams below .200 as a group. They’ve started out fast by claiming the first set in six of the seven, while also showing its moxie by winning three sets by forcing extra points in four tries.
Last Sunday, Georgia was just the third team this month to take a set off of the Tigers, but that was it as the team regrouped and took the next two to close it out, dropping just five sets total while claiming 21. The win over the Bulldogs was also the third for LSU at home, looking to make it four-straight on Friday after dropping the first two of the year in Baton Rouge earlier this season.
“I think it’s big for us to be able to start this weekend at home before going to Arkansas, as we have the chance to build up some positive momentum heading into Sunday,” Flory said.
Offensively, LSU has gotten stronger as the season has continued, getting the type of standout performances that’s helped dominate opposing teams’ defenses, with the Georgia match proving to be a microcosm of the group’s maturation.
Leading the way was sophomore Briana Holman who led all players with 15 kills and hitting .407 with five blocks. On the year she has hit .400 or better nine times with at least 15 kills in a match nine times, averaging 3.71 per match, with a 1.62 blocks per set average which leads the SEC.
Providing double-doubles were Katie Lindelow and Cati Leak, as the duo combined for 22 kills as Lindelow had 15 digs with Leak providing 13. It was Leak’s fifth and Lindelow’s fourth so far this season, as Leak is second on the team in kills averaging 2.69, while Lindelow is second on the team in digs with 2.36.
It also wouldn’t be a group without adding the freshman punch of Mimi Eugene and Gina Tillis, as each chipped in six kills and are both averaging over two kills per set, with Tillis doing much of her work off of the bench while hitting .229 in 39 sets played. In the same match you had Emily Ehrle hit .400 with four kills and no errors and Tillis hitting .286 and contribute to the group’s .273 average.
Serving up those assists was Malorie Pardo, who also had a sold night with six kills and .667 average, while dishing out 47 assists with two service aces and eight digs. Over the course of two matches last week, Pardo averaged over 13 assists per set as she is now averaging over 10 per set for the season.
One week shy of seeing a teammate reach the feat, junior Haley Smith is 86 digs shy of becoming the 15th player in program history to earn 1,000 digs in a career, doing so in just three seasons and earning the bulk of those digs this year and last. Sitting fourth in the league in digs both in and out of the conference, she is looking to match her 500 digs from last season with 304 already in 2014.
South Carolina comes into the weekend 15-7 on the year and 5-4 in league play, winning a pair of matches last weekend. The Gamecocks have been steady in road matches this year earning a 4-2 record away from Columbia, as their two wins this past weekend snapped a four-match losing skid for the visitors.
LSU owns the series advantage winning 21 of 35 all-time meetings in the series, losing only once to South Carolina in the last 10 meetings.
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.