BATON ROUGE, La. – Behind a combined 24 kills from Cati Leak and Briana Holman, 38 assists by Malorie Pardo and 24 digs from Haley Smith, the LSU volleyball team closed out the home portion of the schedule in style with a 3-0 (25-16, 25-22, 25-20) win over the Auburn Tigers Sunday afternoon in Baton Rouge.
The Tigers (18-8, 13-4 SEC) hit .252 as a group while holding Auburn (12-17, 4-12) to a .097 hitting clip on the day as LSU has won consecutive matches going into the final contest of the year at South Carolina next week with an NCAA Tournament berth at stake.
“You definitely want to win your last match on your home court,” head coach Fran Flory said. “We are glad that we could make a weekend sweep against two very good teams. Friday night was a tough match, and this was a tough match. Auburn is a very good team and their system caused us some problems. We adjusted well. I thought overall we played very well.”
Leak led all players with 13 kills and hit .344, while earning 12 digs for her seventh double-double of the season, followed by Holman who finished with 11 on a .364 average with three blocks and a dig. Gina Tillis came off the bench to register eight kills and hit .300. Pardo’s assists and Smith’s digs were both match highs as well.
“Our defense and passing did a really good job of setting the tempo and giving Mal (Pardo) a perfect pass so the middles could pull,” Leak said. “It was a full team effort, so it gave the hitters and me a really good opportunity to see what was going on over there and make the shots.”
Auburn’s Stephanie Campbell finished with 10 kills, the only player to finish with double figure kills for the visitors, while getting 36 assists from Alexa Filley and 10 digs for the double-double. Alyssa Ivey had 17 of Auburn’s 55 digs on the afternoon. The Tigers found trouble to get anything going for long stretches, hitting into LSU’s nine total team blocks, while LSU served well with five service aces to just one service error.
With a lot riding on the match for LSU, Auburn seemed to come out more passive than the home standing Tigers, as LSU raced out to a 12-5 advantage before the 884 in attendance knew it. After burning through both of their timeouts, Auburn would only get as close as seven points in the opening frame, as LSU hit .219, while hitting into 11 attack errors to negate their 11 kills. LSU cruised to take the set 25-16.
The second set proved to be much more entertaining as it featured seven ties and two lead changes. With the set tied at 13-13, a kill by Tillis and Auburn attack error gave LSU a two-point lead at a media timeout. That slim advantage would be enough for the Tigers to hold on to, as they wouldn’t lead by any more than three points, with the visitors pulling within a single point twice from that point on. At 24-21 after an Auburn timeout, a kill for the visitors pulled it within two, but not before another Tillis kill sent LSU into the break leading 2-0 with a 25-22 win.
In the third set, LSU came out firing going up 6-3, but not before Auburn stormed back to tie the set at 6-all with a three-point swing. After trading the next few sets of points, LSU went on a 3-0 run up 9-8 to take a four-point lead to force an Auburn timeout. The Tigers went on to outscore Auburn 5-2 to go up seven and force the visitors into their final timeout of the match.
Even with a sizeable lead, Auburn refused to quit late, breaking match point for LSU four times before eventually succumbing after a Leak kill made it 25-20 to secure the victory for the Tigers.
It was the final match inside the PMAC for seniors Helen Boyle, Madi Mahaffey, Pardo and Laura Whalen, as LSU hits the road next week and will likely do so again the following week if selected for the postseason.
“It’s been a big huge part (of my life) not just this team but the past teams that I have been on,” Pardo said. “Fran has helped everybody become a great person. We came in as like little babies as freshman year. So, we were immature, and we didn’t know what we were doing. It’s crazy to think that four years later we are ready. I think the senior class has no regrets. We’ve done everything to the extent that we could. We put all our hearts and souls into what we do.”
LSU will take on the Gamecocks at 12:30 p.m. in Columbia next Saturday. The match will be streamed live on SEC Network+.
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