BATON ROUGE, La. – Behind its best offensive output of the season, the LSU volleyball team won its second consecutive match with a straight-set, 25-13, 25-12, 25-15, victory over the Mississippi State Bulldogs Wednesday night in Baton Rouge.
In a match that featured just three ties and only one lead change coming in the first, LSU (7-7, 2-3 SEC) hit .368 as a team, its highest of the year, while holding Bulldogs (5-15, 0-5) to a zero attack percentage in sending Mississippi State to its seventh consecutive loss in a row.
“That was a good win for us Sunday and then this is another good win, and the best part about this win was that we dominated,” head coach Fran Flory said. “We did not let up. We did not take our foot off the gas pedal. We executed and we set some separate goals and the kids came up with that and they were able to meet those goals. That’s a great step for our program and a great step for the season.”
In a total team effort, the Tigers were led by freshman Mimi Eugene who led all players with 15 kills on 26 swings to just four errors for a .462 hitting percentage on the night, followed by Briana Holman who hit .438 with eight kills and just one error on 16 swings and seven blocks. In all, eight different players earned at least a kill on the night, with five earning four or more.
“Coming off of two wins we just want to continue, especially traveling this Sunday to Tennessee, so we just want to keep it going,” Eugene said.
Malorie Pardo earned a double-double with her 30 assist and team-high tying 11 digs against MSU, while also having two blocks and five service aces. Three different players earned double-digit digs as Haley Smith also had 11 with Lindelow earning 10 to go along with her six kills and two assists.
Defensively, the Tigers never let the Bulldogs get in any rhythm offensively, as no player on the Mississippi State side finished with more than six kills, while the Tigers stuffed nine total team blocks to go along with their 51 digs, capturing 76 percent of their sideout opportunities.
“The best thing we can do is pull someone else in with us,” Holman said. “We’re having good chemistry right now so all we need to do is pull someone in with us, and then the next week we can pull another person and just continue until all of us are together.”
There was no letdown for the squad, and it almost seemed as if the win on Sunday helped energize the squad, as they came out firing on all cylinders hitting a blistering .517 in the opening set with 17 kills to just two errors with 17 assists and 15 digs. Four different LSU players had no less than three kills in the first, led by Eugene’s six, on a .625 clip, followed by Holman with four and Leak and Lindelow with three.
After playing to a draw after the first six points, the Tigers turned on the jets and rattled off seven of the next eight points, including getting three straight aces by Pardo before the Bulldogs called their first timeout of the set down 10-4 to LSU. A Leak kill out of the timeout extended the team’s run to five-straight, eventually going up 16-7 with MSU calling its final timeout of the frame.
Although Mississippi State would score a handful of points late in the set, the deficit would be too much for the visitors to overcome in the end with LSU taking the first 25-13.
While the team wasn’t able to keep up the torrid pace it had in the first, the second set was almost as bad for Mississippi State as they were held to a .030 hitting percentage with just six kills while LSU had 14 on a .355 clip after getting five more from Eugene in the frame while earning three from Lindelow and two each from Leak and Gina Tillis.
Of the first 12 points of the second, the Tigers garnered 10 to force a Bulldog timeout leading 10-2 in the frame. With LSU leading 7-1, Mississippi State got its second point of the match on a Tiger blocking error and it would be the last for the side for the next nine points from that point as LSU led 16-2 to force MSU into its final timeout of the frame.
After serving nine consecutive times, the Bulldogs were finally able to break the LSU run, and garnered seven more points after that, but with a 13-point lead for LSU up 23-10, the set was already in hand as LSU closed with two kills from Tillis to take it 25-12 and take a two sets to none lead in the match.
LSU was able to get a host of players involved in the third set after showing such dominant play in the first two, as the squad hit .257, getting four kills from Eugene, and three each from Holman and Emily Ehrle, as Pardo served up eight of her assists and had six digs.
The Tigers methodically pulled away from the Bulldogs throughout the first 17 points, taking a 12-5 lead over Mississippi State to force a timeout trailing the Tigers 12-5. MSU would show a bit of life after the break, pulling within four of LSU at 14-10, but that would be the closest they would get to the home team, as LSU jutted out to a 19-14 lead to force the final timeout of the match for the visitors.
Mississippi State would get only one more point for the rest of the match as three attack errors after that timeout made it 22-14, with a single kill by Mississippi State after that run being the last as a Kill from Madi Mahaffey, MSU attack in a block from Elly Ogle and Holman and another attack error sealed the win for the Tigers.
“I think our team had great perspective and the brand of volleyball that we chose to play was an aggressive, attack mindset and we haven’t done that in the past,” Flory said. “We’ve come out and kind of felt the opponents out to see what they’re going to do and how hard do we have to play and that was the message all week. That’s been the message all season but I think we finally grasped it. It doesn’t matter who’s on the other side, none of that matters. All that matters is how we execute on our side and we certainly played at a high level tonight.”
LSU will hit the road for its next four, beginning this Sunday with a trip to Knoxville for a date with Tennessee at 12:30 p.m.
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